


The Mirror Cracked

by Lana_Morrigan



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Curses, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Female Apprentice (The Arcana), Fluff and Smut, Hurt/Comfort, Illustrations, Julian Devorak Route - Reversed Ending, Julian is a wonderful idiot, Magic, More angst, Named Apprentice (The Arcana), Reverse ending, Tarot, The Arcana (Visual Novel) Spoilers, Wings, can you tell how keen I am to punch the Devil in the face?, dialogue from the game, leaving the Hanged Raven, seriously, tarot sex magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:48:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 41,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24921061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lana_Morrigan/pseuds/Lana_Morrigan
Summary: The Apprentice finds Julian in the Hanged Raven and works to coax him out of his depression and back towards her and the wider world.“Now I’m here. Funny. Don’t remember walking. Or flying - can I fly? Shouldn’t - bad idea - there’ll be town militia with crossbows thinking I’ve come to eat their children… They’re right. Not about the children bit, just… just… I am a monster. Safer here. For me. For them. The Hanged Raven... Ilya, stupid boy, lost in a bottle down a dockside dive. I’m exactly where everyone always expected me to be.” He grins, feral and bitter. “Well, there’s something to be said for living up to people’s expectations, eh?”
Relationships: Apprentice/Julian Devorak
Comments: 20
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I played Julian's story and thought that the Reverse Ending suited his dialogue and character so much more than the Upright Ending. Despite that, I still wanted to improve his situation. Hence, an attempt at fix-it-fic.

Julian always liked to claim the Rowdy Raven was a derelict slum of a place, but he spent enough time there to suggest it wasn’t as bad as all that. This place on the other hand - the Hanged Raven - truly is a dive. The tables are broken and crooked and many of the chairs smashed to kindling. Dust covers every surface and hangs thick in the air, festooning the cobwebs which in turn hang in grey swags from the ceiling beams. There are candles along the bar and set on the windowsills offering small and flickering pools of illumination. The windows are so grimy they let in very little light. I notice something dark by the toe of my boot and stoop to pick it up. It’s a ragged black flight feather.

“Ah,” a voice from the far side of the room by an empty hearth says lazily, making me jump. “I see. Another illusion. Honestly I’ve lost count, there have been so many. Don’t take it personally. You’re rather lovely as illusions go. Very… convincing.” His wistful expression sours and his voice becomes a furious snarl. “Except for the fact that Lana is _gone_ and I will not see her like again!” He sounds almost triumphant, but his expression is nauseous. He picks up a tankard from the pile strewn around him and drinks, the liquid spilling at the corners of his mouth as if his jaw is foreign to him. There’s a bottle floating in the air above the tankards, it proceeds to tip itself and refill some of the mugs.

I wonder how often this scene has played out. I wonder how often an apparition has come to torment him? Enough times for him now to insouciantly drink his way through the encounter, it seems.

“But hey, everyone’s welcome here. Even illusions conjured by the Devil.”

I cannot catch my breath: I feel like I’ve been punched hard enough to crack ribs as all the air leaves my lungs and my heart constricts in pain. “The Devil?” Fury battles sadness within me, neither emotion gaining the upper hand no matter how hard they try.

“Didn’t he tell you that when he made you? Do tell him he’s wasting his time.” He grins, wide and hollow. “I’m not - I, I’ve learnt my lesson. He doesn’t have to even watch me anymore… Why has he sent another of you? I’ve been minding my own business for some time now.” His smile remains bright but the look in his shadowed eyes is anguished.

“How long have you been here?”

“Hm? I - I haven’t kept track.” His smile is too wide; sickle-sharp. “Perhaps you could keep track - mind my calendar… pints… _feathers_ ,” he adds bitterly and tries not to laugh, a silent caustic mirth shaking his shoulders.

In that moment, it seems ridiculous to me that I’ve journeyed for so long and fought so hard to find my way back to him. And here, at last, there’s six feet of space between us when he could be within the aegis of my arms. I drop my pack and rush to him, throwing my arms about his neck and kissing him for all I’m worth. The first kisses are desperate, awkward things; Julian startles as if it’s an attack he didn’t see coming. Then as his mouth opens in surprise, I shamelessly take advantage, my tongue seeking shelter in the warmth within, my arms tightening against him as his name burns my lips.

“You’re here - you’re _here_ \- you…” he sounds delirious.

“I’m real - I am. I’m alive. I’ve found you - I promised you I would.”

He pushes away, breaking my hold on him and causing me to stagger back before folding in upon himself, huddling in a crouch. “You must be disappointed, Lana.”

I recognise grandstanding when I hear it. The use of my name is a challenge, something designed to shield him and wound me. He’s still talking, so agitated that half the time I can’t hear him. Instead I look at him, at the vast wings curving up from his back and the pitch black and mistreated feathers that dust his shoulders, hips, legs and arms. His bright auburn hair is gone, but the long and lanky frame is still very much Julian, as are his bruise-grey eyes and the sharp angles of his jaw and mouth. His wings are magnificent, or they will be once the blood and grime has been washed from them.

“I’m just this - this CREATURE!”

“Don’t…”

“The Julian you knew is _gone.”_

“Don’t you _dare_ \- the Julian I know is right here - and so am I.”

He stands again, unfolding limb by limb. “Don’t play the fool, Lana.”

I can’t help but laugh, a sound wrenched from my throat, the noise surprisingly buoyant in the gloom of the tavern. “I have been the Fool - if ever there was a card for me it’s that one. Forgive me if I play the part a while longer.”

His cold facade cracks like ice: his wings extend sharply, causing the dust and shadows to writhe. The candlelight gleams weakly on ragged feathers as he looms over me, tall and dark as a wraith, a queasy smile revealing small, white, pointed teeth. “Do you know how long it’s been?”

Speechless I shake my head; time is different now.

“How long I _suffered, alone, in the dark?”_ his voice strains and cracks. His words aren’t melodrama, just pain, raw and bleeding. “Not knowing - not knowing what was - who - who was real?” His movements are sharp and angular, wounded fury barely held in check, feathers ruffling, teeth grinding, limbs taut as he rakes his talons down his forearms until they lock at his wrists, bleeding bright. He’s not looking at me anymore, he’s not looking at anything as his blood drips onto the floor. “Sometimes I… I… I couldn’t remember your name.”

That confession crushes him; he unclasps his hands violently, gouging further scratches and leaving blood and mutilated feathers in the wake of his talons.

I raise my hand towards him, wishing to stop him but uncertain how. I can’t hold him still - he could shake me off with a flick of his wrist. I could bind him with magic and stop him from hurting himself further… But I sense the Devil’s chains around him. He’s been bound enough.

He begins to pace. “I - I tried. I clung to every scrap I could remember.” Suddenly - wretchedly - he crosses his arms over his chest and scores his talons down all the way from shoulder to wrist; tearing out feathers and leaving fresh bloody grooves in their place.

“Julian! Don’t!”

He ignores me - no - he doesn’t even hear me. His mind is somewhere else, in some oubliette I can’t reach.

“When I couldn’t take it anymore, I tried to fight the Devil myself...” A smile blooms like a plague across his mouth, rotten and deadly. “I lost. I fought and I lost again and again… Don’t they say that’s what madness is? Doing something over and over and expecting it to turn out differently? ... I thought it might be nice to be mad you know...” His tone is almost conversational. “Peaceful. Thought it might hurt less.” A poisonous chuckle. “Shows what I know.” He wants to come across as cavalier but can’t quite manage it. His gaze catches on a feather on his right forearm that has escaped the last purge. With a snarl he tears it out and lets it drop in the ever-growing crimson mess at his feet.

“Julian, please…”

He stares at the blood and broken feathers littering the floor. “I lost and I lost… I realised every time I fought, I lost pieces of myself.” A short, harsh bark of laughter as he curled against himself, the irony of his situation defeating him. “Do you know how many pieces of yourself you can lose before you aren’t _you_ anymore?”

 _I died and came back, losing all that I was in the process, and yet Asra and Muriel knew my character to be the same as it ever had been. No matter how ignorant of myself I was... Like the Arcana, no matter how our souls are bound or twisted, we will never truly change..._ These thoughts flow through my mind but I keep them to myself: this is not about me or my philosophical musings on the nature of humanity, this is Julian’s pain.

“Do you know what it’s like to look in a mirror and not know who’s looking back?” His voice is a low rasp, desperation forced between too-sharp teeth that have bitten his lower lip ragged.

I do know - I know all too well. I had Asra, kind and patient Asra, teaching me how to live, how to be myself again even when I was ignorant of who that was. Hope flares in my heart; if Asra could guide me back from death, then surely I could coax Julian back to himself?

A cry of frustration shatters my thoughts. Fresh feathers are pushing through Julian’s skin and he is digging them out leaving further furrows in his arms and mutilated pieces of feathers to join their long lost kin on the bloody floor. He watches the feathers fall, float, submerge and slowly drown in crimson. A flicker of satisfaction shows on his face before he blanches. “It didn’t matter. It didn’t mean a damn thing! I failed. Like always.” His pacing has stilled and his whole body folds in on itself, shoulders and arms hunching, his talons clawing new wounds on his back as he hugs his arms across his chest. “It was all for nothing… _All for nothing,”_ he echoes, his head wilting against his shoulder, his wings raised to curl around and cocoon him. “I lost my soul,” he murmurs. “I lost everything…”

“Not everything!” The words burst clumsily from my lips before I can stop them.

He blinks, confused, his sharp beaky head raised querulously to look at me. “What?”

“You - you haven’t lost everything. I’m here. I said I’d find you and I have. I’m _here._ And I still love you.”

The dawning expression of hope on his face shifts and becomes snide. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he sneers. “Even a blind man could tell - I’m - I’m not _your_ Julian anymore. He… he died,” he ends abashedly, uncomfortable with voicing it aloud. Turning away from me he starts to pace in tight, eccentric circles. I can hear the talons of his feet click against the boards, but there’s another sound too; a crunching like the shattering of ice or the snap of sugar brittle. I realise the floor by the hearth is littered with smashed bottles and slivers of a mirror that used to hang over the fireplace. Julian’s claws grind them into splinters even as they cut into the soles of his feet. “The last time I tried to fight the - to fight… I finally realised…” He pauses, his agitation making him look like a clockwork automation with a glitch. “No - I _knew_ ,” his head sags in misery. “I’d known for a long time.” His chin snaps up again in an empty approximation of triumph. “I _accepted_ that I couldn’t win. And I - I stopped fighting. Fate is fate after all - isn’t that what those cards of yours teach?”

I expected him to meet my gaze, but he doesn’t; I barely exist, I’ve fallen out of his world again and his words are for the motes of dust in the air and the splinters lacerating the soles of his feet.

“Now I’m here. Funny. Don’t remember walking. Or flying - can I fly? Shouldn’t - bad idea - there’ll be town militia with crossbows thinking I’ve come to eat their children… They’re right. Not about the children bit, just… just… I _am_ a monster. Safer here. For me. For them. The Hanged Raven... _Ilya, stupid boy, lost in a bottle down a dockside dive..._ I’m exactly where everyone always expected me to be.” He grins, feral and bitter. “Well, there’s something to be said for living up to people’s expectations, eh?” He grabs the bottle that is still diligently floating over the heap of tankards, drinks from it, and then smashes it against the floor so it may join the shards of its brethren at his feet. _“Paradise,”_ he growls.

There is a soft pop of displaced air as another bottle manifests out of the aether and busies itself filling tankards. Julian starts to laugh, a sound more like a cough than actual amusement. His wings convulse and extend making the tavern feel very small all of a sudden as he hunches over himself, weighed down by the force of guilt. His left wing twitches and catches the floating bottle and the tankards, batting them to the floor to meet their demise. Another bottle materialises but keeps a wary distance, choosing its moment. Julian’s wings are half spread and have knocked over not only the tankards but the two tables nearest him: they are powerful and majestic - or at least they ought to be but are stained with ash and blood; feathers ragged and torn, un-groomed and uncared for. I ache to run my fingers through them, carding them smooth, gentling them back into shape.

He looks at the scattered tankards and the terrified floating bottle and sneers at his own weakness. “I... I gave up… I pulled them out at first,” he says, his tone knife-edge-bright. “The feathers. But then there were too many - they grow too fast, you see. Then - then my legs - they…” His words hitch and trail off. His feet are the claws of a raven; a little wider and fleshier perhaps, but corvidic none the less. And the configuration of his ankles, knees and hips have altered becoming avian, dusted with dark feathers too. “My nails keep growing.” He looks at his hands as if seeing them for the first time, as if he hadn’t been clawing at his own arms a minute ago, as if the gleaming needle-points of his ebony talons were new. His lips twist in hatred. “And now I’m _this_. A - a…” he almost chokes on the word. “A _demon_.” Another turn, another twitch of his wings as the shards bite into the soles his feet. “So!” He proclaims with false levity. “Go on, Lana - or whatever you are, wearing her name and face like a cloak… Be honest - you always were good at that. Do you still think you love me?”

Do I _think?_ Anger blooms hot and sudden in my chest: I want to storm over there and hit him. Do I _think_ I love him? Idiot - _idiot_ \- how dare he? But I know self-deprecation and self-loathing when see it; my anger has no place here. I huff out a long-hissed breath. _“You utter bloody idiot,”_ I mutter. Then, “I could prove it to you. If you’d let me.”


	2. Chapter 2

That stops him: he looks at me, the grey of his eyes clouded with puzzlement.

I take the opportunity to close the distance between us. He startles, flinching away, wings raised. I wonder how long it’s been for Julian since he’s spoken to anyone who wasn’t a magical illusion sent to torment him - or worse, a mocking voice from inside his own head. “I’ve travelled worlds and realms to find you. Do you honestly think I’m going to turn tail now? I don’t love you for what you look like. I love you for who you are, Julian.” He recoils from the sound of his name as if it’s a whip. “You’re still _you_ ," I insist. "Always have been, always will be. Ilya. Julian. Jules. Ian. They’re all still you.”

His wings flare and beat down in agitation almost knocking me off my feet. “I am NOT!” The shout is torn from his throat in desperation. Then softly, brokenly, “I’m _not_.”

Guilt threatens to overwhelm me; I could fall to my knees and weep. Julian made his bargain to keep me safe. He suffered for me - an unasked for sacrifice he was compelled to swear on my behalf. I didn’t confine him to this prison, but even if I didn’t love him, I’d still feel duty bound to free him from it. No one deserves to suffer as he has. Perhaps it would be easier if I didn’t love him? Then I could cajole and bully him out of this abyss and not have to take his battered feelings into consideration. I shake my head; there's no point entertaining what-ifs and might-have-beens. I love him, and that’s that. Before I can second guess myself, I step forward until I’m within the circle of his wings and the clasp of his talons. I throw my arms around his neck, dragging him down until his face is within reach of my lips. I kiss his cheek and he shivers to a stop. “I love you Julian,” I tell him between kisses. “I loved you before. I love you now. I’ll love you later. The moon shows different facets of her face in the night sky, but no one ever doubts she’s still the moon.”

He makes a chimera sound, part keen, part growl, the seam of his mouth opening helplessly.

I press kisses along his jaw, working a trail to his lips. “I will _always_ love you,” I whisper against the fluttering pulse of his neck before moving back up to the sharp angles of his jaw. His breathing has changed, tiny stutter-sips, as if to move - to even take a full lungful of air - will destroy him. “No matter who or what you become. I love you Julian,” I murmur against his mouth.

He keens again, wanting to move but forbidding himself, terrified even now that I’ll cast him away for being monstrous. _“Lana…”_

I push against him, capturing his narrow lips with my own, feeling the points of his teeth and the warmth of his tongue. All at once the tension bleeds from him: it’s so sudden I fear he’s actually hurt, but in the next instance his arms are folding around me, claws closing like a cage around my ribs as he sags against me, a lanky feathered weight. His talons tense, pressing against my clothes, piercing cloth and denting skin. I can feel something burning cold like frosted metal; it takes me a moment to realise it’s not Julian himself but his aura. I focus, concentrating on seeing with my magic and not my eyes: the chains surrounding him come sharply to the fore, wound tightly around his soul. The Devil’s handiwork - a stark signature and proof of the deal Julian made on my behalf. Salt burns my eyes. “Oh Julian,” I say softly against the feathers of his hair. “Please - please let me unbind you.”

His calm snarls into tension once more. “Unbind?”

“I can free you - I can break his chains.”

He flinches violently away from me, his talons shredding my cloak and scoring furrows across my ribs and back. _“NO!”_ His wings flare, unfurling and making the space feel claustrophobic as he vehemently shakes his head, his eyes wide, his expression horrified. _“No_ \- you can’t!” He clutches at my shoulders, talons digging into my back even as the claws of his thumbs bore into the flesh beneath my collarbones. His hands clench, ebony needles digging deeper.

It should hurt but the pain doesn’t register, I have no attention for anything save the agony and intensity in Julian’s eyes.

“My deal with him is the _only_ thing that’s protecting you! You cannot - you - if you break that!” He’s frantic now, fingers tensing, claws gouging in his distress. I can feel a warm heat running in rivulets from my shoulders under my shirt. “He could hurt you - kill you - or - or…” Abruptly he lets go of me with a shove, stepping away, arms and wings open to encompass all that he’s become. “I… _please_ … I can’t see you hurt. All I did… it was to keep you safe. If I’ve failed in that... I’ll have lost everything.”

I’m thankful for the fitful candlelight and the leather jerkin over my shirt masking the blood I can feel streaking my torso. “I’m already in danger,” I tell him gently, and despite the wounds I don’t mean from him. “That deal protects me from the Devil, not from anything else. Life is chance and danger - it always has been. Now that the realms have merged the chaos is heightened and pretty much inescapable…”

“All the more reason to keep the Devil away from you!” he snaps, wings flaring in agitation. “You haven’t seen him since, have you?” His expression crumples even as his lips cant sourly. “You don’t know what he’s like - what he’s capable of.” He turns away from me and resumes pacing, claws clicking against the wood, pottery and mirror shards grinding against discarded feathers and sticky crimson. “I’m your _protection_ , Lana - your own guardian demon - don’t you see? Everything - _everything_ I did… He cannot be allowed to touch you - _I will not allow it!”_

I say nothing, and the silence strains. “And the rest?” I ask at last, my voice quiet.

He stills, eyebrows knifed down in a frown as he bites his lip.

I want him to recognise how the world turns: there is risk and chance in life. I want him to realise it’s not his job to save me from every harm that might come my way. He’s not meant to be a sacrifice to my safety - once was more than enough on that account.

He meets my gaze, steel grey eyes determined and strangely vulnerable. “If you stayed here… I could protect you.” A quirk of bitter humour shows in the shape of his brow. “Best bit about being a monster. Other monsters run away...” One of his hands clenches into a fist.

Seeing that gesture I don’t think all the other monsters ran - or if they did, I don’t think they got very far.

“I’m stronger now.” A crooked look not at me or the dilapidated husk of the tavern but into the aether at the irony of his situation. His shoulders tense along with his breath. He swallows the self-pity down, swallows again, and then finds his voice once more. “I’m strong enough to keep you safe. I couldn’t before…” A strange noise that's meant to be a laugh. “Finally! A sin I can redeem myself from!” A second strangled noise that ought to be humour but isn’t. A frown at the floor before he raises his head to look at me.

The candlelight dances across his face and I can’t tell whether the emotion in his eyes is pain or grim fortitude. Cautiously, as if I’m something wild, he extends his hand, offering it to me. “Stay with me.” His voice is small and oddly flat, shorn of hope. “Please...” His eyelids lower as he says it and his hand, feathered and taloned, trembles.

My hand starts to reach for his in turn before I realise and steel myself. “Julian,” I say gently. “What about… What about everyone else?” I’ve been so focused on my quest it takes a moment to link individual names to faces, friends to memories, as I make them real by reciting their names. “Portia - well - Pasha really, that’s her proper name isn’t it? And Mazelinka. Asra. Nadia. Muriel. Or Selasi - the baker in the market who makes that pumpkin bread you and Portia like so much. What about all the people of Vesuvia? You came here to help them,” I remind him. It’s a low trick: Julian has always been willing to shoulder the pain of others. It's a trait I must have encouraged, otherwise how in the seven hells did we end up here?

“Pasha…” He utters her name, a quiet and yearned for benediction. “I - I haven’t seen her since - since…” His wings and shoulders shrug up and then slump heavily downwards.

“You never looked for her?” My voice is sharper than I mean it to be, surprise honing the words like a blade, all the better to cut him with.

He not only crumples but falls like a broken marionette, limbs and wings folded crookedly against the blood and grimy splinters on the floor. His head is bowed. “No.”

I take a steadying breath; I can hear static in my ears that matches the pins and needles in my fingers and I can’t understand why either are there. I focus. “Don’t you want to see them again?” I don’t mean for desperation to colour my voice, but I know it does. This is the one single unchangeable tenet of Julian’s character I know: he will do anything for those he loves.

 _“Of course I do!”_ It’s almost a wail, dragged from his throat with so much anguish it might as well have been cut from his body with one of Valdemar’s knives. “But…”

My heart constricts painfully at that one, small, word.

“But I don’t… I don’t want them to see me. Not like this.” There is a faint sibilance to the final word as it exhales through the points of his teeth. He twists away, hunching, trying to take comfort in the shadows and the velvet of his own wings.

Portia would have hit him with a skillet, and perhaps coming from her it would have worked too, but I have no such luxuries.

“I don’t expect you to understand.” His voice is muffled by his wings, drawn high and tense around him. “I don’t know why…” His feathers almost drown the words. “You always found good in me, even when I couldn’t find it in myself… But even you… Even you can’t find anything worth salvaging now. I’m a monster in thrall to the Devil. I’m everything we fought against.”

Those words shatter my heart asunder. Julian cannot - _must not -_ believe that. “That’s not…”

His leaden words, so soft, silence me. “How can I face them like _this?”_ He shudders and turns his back on me, feathers rustling against the glinting sharpness over the floor as mirror fragments reflect the candlelight and are turned briefly to diamonds and rubies. “It’s better,” he tells the cold hearth. “It has to be like this. It’s better for everyone.”

The static at the edge of my senses tries to intrude again and with an effort I blink it away. “They still love you. Don’t you understand? Talons - feathers - they don’t matter. You’re still Ilya, still Julian. And they’ll still love you. Just as I do.”

He turns his head, glancing over his shoulder at me, and there is something so terribly fragile in his expression. “How… how can you know?” His voice is barely a whisper, scratchy and dry. “It’s my _fault_ \- I - I - it’s my fault this happened - all of it! My fear - my weakness…” He surges to his feet and resumes pacing, his wings scattering the tankards and sending the floating bottle bobbing into the far corner as if carried on a tide. The boards crunch wetly beneath his feet. “If I’d been stronger - had the courage I ought…”

Portia would have shouted at him, given him a piece of her mind, one hand on her hip, the other jabbing an infuriated finger in her brother’s face. But I’m not Portia. The wrong word from me and I fear he’ll shatter.

His wings fold around him like an embrace he needs but cannot ask for. “If I’d been better… Maybe things could have been different.” Defeat and regret taint every syllable.

I risk a step towards him and then another. “We can’t know that, Julian, no one can. You’re trapped in the past, making yourself miserable.” I raise my hand, offering it to him. “All I ask is that you take my hand and step with me into the present - maybe then a little further into the future... I’m right here. And it’s such a small step, Julian. I know you can do it…” I smile at how he claps my hand, swift and hungry, his ebony talons folding around my palm.

“Lana, you… do you mean it?”

I almost laugh, thinking again now Portia would cuff him round the ear. “Yes! Yes, I do.”

His chin dips down and his brows furrow. “Do you really… do you think they’ll want to see me?”

I don’t mean to, but I can picture Portia’s and Mazelinka’s reaction to his question so clearly the laughter bubbles out of me. “You lunatic! Of course they would, if only to assault you with kitchen implements for staying away for so long!”

His mouth quirks into a genuine smile at that, although his eyes are wet and glassy. He wipes at his face with one feathered forearm, smudging blood on his cheek in the process. His smile widens, queasy at the edges. “If you say so.”

“I do.”

He chuckles, a raw, rusted sound.

I clasp one of his hands in both of mine. “We can’t stay here forever. We have kith and kin to find - and a world to save. Oh, and I really want to punch the Devil in his self-satisfied stupid face! So does Malak - did I tell you he’s here? He’s roosting in a tree outside…”

I don’t notice the static creeping back, encroaching like a rising tide. I only realise when all I can see is Julian’s face looming over mine, his expression anxious, his mouth forming words I can’t hear.

“Julian…?”

My eyelids stutter closed and do not open again for some time.


	3. Chapter 3

When I open them again all I can see is a velvet darkness, quite different in character to the silvery twilight that suffuses this realm. I try to move but my chest feels too heavy, weighed down by something. Pain blooms across my shoulders and I make a small noise of distress.

The darkness recedes abruptly, and I realise it was comprised of feathers, many broken and stained, their natural sheen dulled. I’m cradled in Julian’s lap, one of his arms and both wings wrapped around me protectively, although he withdraws them in haste as he feels me stir. “…Julian?” My voice sounds thin and hazy.

“Thank the gods,” he murmurs reverently, his arms reaching greedily for me again, pressing me to his chest, wings curling and unfurling in his distress, wanting to shield me and not knowing from what. His arms envelope me entirely, but his talons are clenched in fists, keeping their sharpness hidden. He shivers against me, quaking. I realise he’s crying.

“Julian…” I raise my hand to his cheek, my fingers brushing against the sleek stubble of downy feathers that line his jaw. The movement pulls my shoulder and the wounds stretch open and weep red. I try not to wince. “It’s alright…”

“You fainted!”

Belatedly I realise that my jerkin must still be masking the blood, and my dark linen shirt had stuck to the wounds and helped to staunch them. If Julian doesn’t realise what happened, then I’m certainly not going to tell him. He has enough self-hate to fuel a pyre; I refuse to give him more. I smile, a small crooked expression. “Sorry, I was more tired than I realised. But I’m alright now - promise.”

His arms tighten around me; I feel the cloth of my shirt shift, the linen pulling away from the clotted wounds. I can feel the sluggish warmth of fresh blood trickle down my back and the static - dark and light both at once - threatens my vision again. Julian feels as I tilt in his grasp, slumping against him. I think he calls my name but I’m too tired to answer; darkness drags me down.

When next I wake, I’m cocooned in blankets and cloaks on the floor of the Hanged Raven. The room is chill and silent and yet I sense I’m not alone. I open my eyes tiredly, blink and look around. Across the room from where I lie, by the hearth, past broken tables and shattered chairs, a dark shape huddles. I sit up slowly: my boots and jerkin have been removed, the sleeves of my shirt torn off and turned into ragged strips of bandage that wrap snuggle over and around my shoulders. I cough and pull one of the cloaks around me, my mind still hazy and my shoulders sore. I stand uncertainly and fix my gaze on the mound of dark feathers by the hearth. I blink again; the shadow in the corner appears to be rocking on their haunches, incessant motion designed to bring comfort. As I approach on stockinged feet, navigating between the splinters threatening my toes, the shadows shift as a pair of midnight wings hunch more tightly around their owner. Cautiously I reach out a hand, tentatively brushing against his feathers. He flinches.

“Don’t touch me,” he growls wretchedly. “I hurt you. I hurt you when I held your shoulders. And you stood there - bleeding - and said nothing!”

I sigh ruefully. “I was rather hoping you wouldn’t notice.”

“Why? Lana why would you do that?”

Carefully, mindful of the debris on the floor I kneel down in front of him, waiting for the halo of his wings to open again so I can see his face. “Julian,” I say quietly. “You’ve been through so much. It’s not your place to take responsibility for my actions…”

“Mine!” he shouts, his wings unfurling angrily, the feathers brushing past my face. “They were _my_ actions! This is what I am now - this - this _thing_ only capable of inflicting pain!”

“And healing it,” I remind him, gesturing to the bandages he’d bound around my shoulders.

He snorts and refuses to meet my gaze.

“Julian,” I try again. “You made a deal with the Devil for me. You chose that path wholly unselfishly. That took strength and courage - more than I have in my heart…”

“Lana…”

“No, listen to me. You have been fantastically brave, but instead of acknowledging that you’ve been punishing yourself. What are you punishing yourself for?”

His voice is very small. “Not being enough. Failing. No matter how hard I try I always end up failing...”

I shake my head, a long curl of hair falling loose of its pin to hang like a spring by my ear. The movement catches his eye and for a moment Julian looks at me with twinned love and heartache. “Oh Lana…” He reaches out a talon to tuck the curl behind my ear before remembering himself and snatching his hand back. “You always manage to pin your hair like a bird’s nest in a hedgerow. Has no one introduced you to the concept of a brush?”

I smile; for a moment Julian had almost sounded like his old self. “And brush all the curls out? I’d rather it was wild. But look - here…” I pull out one of the six pins trying valiantly to tame my hair and keep it in place and hold it out to him. “You bought these for me at the market, to wear at the Masquerade, do you remember?”

He leans forward to peer at the little silver pin adorned at the top with a charm. “Hm. _Feathers_ ,” he mutters wryly.

“Malak kept perching on my shoulder and trying to pull them out!”

A watery smile. “I think he was trying to groom you.”

I return the pin to my hair, sweeping the loose curls securely up again. “Speaking of,” I needle gently, “how about I fetch some water from the well outside and we get some of that grime off you?”

“I’m not having you carrying buckets of water when you’re wounded!”

“Julian,” I say with infinite patience, “your feet are full of pottery shards and bits of mirror and your arms are covered in cuts.”

He blinks, startled, staring at his forearms and registering the dark lines of dried blood that liberally cover them. His cheeks flush and he has the grace to look abashed. “Oh… I, uh… I hadn’t really noticed.”

“Hm. I’ll fetch some water - I can heal you after you’re cleaned up.”

“No - Lana - please - heal your shoulders. I’ll - I’ll be fine.”

I shake my head at him with a fond smile. “I have enough magic for the both of us and more besides.”

“Lana…”

“Hush,” I scold him, closing my eyes and calling up a whisper of magic before directing it to the puncture-wounds in my back and shoulders and feeling it suffuse my skin, seeping into my flesh and knitting it back together. I open my eyes and roll my shoulders, pleased by the lack of pain. “Ah, that does feel better,” I admit. I stand, glance at my stockinged feet, and then wave my hand with another flurry of magic, sweeping all the dust and broken fragments into the furthest corner of the room and out of the way. “Back in a minute,” I tell him brightly.

Julian watches me as I leave, his eyes haunted.

The well handle is stiff with disuse, but the bucket is whole, and it only takes a little effort to send it down and winch it back up, brim-full of cool, clear water. It’s heavy enough to require two hands as I carry it awkwardly back, trying not to spill any of the liquid. “Here we are,” I announce as I shoulder the door open. The candles flicker in the breeze and gleam across Julian’s eyes, revealing them to be wide and wet, tears staining his cheeks. “What’s wrong?” I ask as I bully the bucket towards the hearth.

Julian shakes his head and hastily brushes the back of his hand across his eyes. “Nothing,” he mutters.

“Julian?”

“I - I wasn’t sure you’d come back,” he mutters, ashamed.

“I’m here now.” I leave the bucket next to him and go to my pack, rummaging through until I find a washcloth. Triumphant I turn around and my heart twists at how lost and bedraggled Julian looks. He’d always had so much poise and flare - even when he’d taken wounds from me and was bleeding, even when he was standing on the gallows platform, moments away from his own death. The Devil had taken his soul, and with it his self-confidence and style. I sternly tell myself Julian has no need for my pity and he certainly wouldn’t want it. I sit beside him on the floor, dump the cloth in the bucket and begin the painstaking task of removing bits of silvered glass and pottery fragments from his feet. Julian watches me work in silence, only the occasional curl of his lip or hiss of breath giving any indication how much it hurts. I’m starting on his left foot when he suddenly rocks forward and says my name, loud enough to startle me.

“Lana... What happened?”

His anguish confuses me. “What do you mean? What happened…?”

“Your arms,” he says sadly.

I look down at my wrists: in the candlelight my scars gleam long and silver like a collection of ghostly briar thorns wrapped around from fingertips to elbow. “Oh,” I say lightly. “Those.”

“You didn’t - please tell me you didn’t…” The words strangle in this throat, the thought too terrible to vocalise.

“No! Seven hells, I didn’t do this!” I huff.

Julian sags in relief. “Then what - what happened?”

“There was… there was a mirror realm that I travelled through on my way here. There were these… corridors - almost a labyrinth I suppose - and it was all mirrors and darkness. And reflections, of course,” I add with a bleak laugh. “All manner of reflections and few of them pleasant.”

Julian quirks an eyebrow at me.

“Oh, I’d see myself when I had the plague. Or bound by the Devil. Or standing over Asra’s grave. Or yours… The worst of what was and what might have been. I - I saw you sometimes too, always too far ahead to catch no matter how hard I tried.” I give a tight smile. “It turns out, reflections have very sharp edges - found that out the hard way.” I busy myself with pulling glass from his left foot, not willing to elaborate on how many times I’d seen him in that fragmented realm, how many times I’d reached out to grab him only for the edge of his coat to slice across my skin as he slipped through my fingers. The ghost reflections were edged like razors, so fine that half the time I didn’t notice the wounds they’d left until I felt the blood warm my skin. It hurt, but never as much as the fear that I’d lost Julian for good because I couldn’t catch him, couldn’t hold on to him. That cold panic in my heart pained me a hundred times more keenly. I should have kept my hands in my pockets after that first time, but I couldn’t. Hope’s relentless like that. I think of Julian’s confession of how he fought the Devil again and again, battering himself senseless against an unstoppable foe. It seems to me we’ve both gone a little mad without the other to hold onto…

I pull out what I hope is the last splinter and retrieve the wet rag from the bucket before pausing to give him an apologetic smile.

“I don’t care if it hurts.”

“I’ll try to ensure it doesn’t.” As gently as I can I wash his feet, carefully wiping away the blood and grimy dust. He doesn’t flinch as I work, just watches me blankly. Satisfied they’re clean enough to be healed I summon a tendril of magic and direct it to Julian’s lacerated feet, watching as the red wounds close leaving his skin seamless once more.

“Thank you.”

“We’re not done yet. Arms next, then I think the rest of you could do with a wash too.”

“Hm, I suppose I have let my rakish good looks go to seed of late,” he jokes weakly.

I rinse and wring out the cloth, the water in the bucket now streaked with pink and grey. I begin to wash his arms, working my way down from his shoulders. Some of the cuts start to bleed again as the caked blood is wiped away. “Nonsense,” I tell him. “You are every inch the dashing reprobate who I first met breaking into my shop. _Twice.”_

He doesn’t laugh but he does smile at his own folly. “Hm, yes, well… sorry about that.”

I snort. “Sorry won’t fix the window!”

His cheeks colour and he looks suitably contrite. “Wait a minute – twice? I only broke in once. The other sound of smashing glass was from the bottle you hit me with!”

I bite my lip. “Sorry. You startled me. I don’t know why you couldn’t have used the bloody door. And it _was_ twice y’know…” I rinse the cloth again and work on his right arm, scowling at the ravaged and mistreated feathers. I sigh. “You should take better care of yourself,” I scold.

His eyes slide away from mine. “It didn’t… it didn’t seem - _I_ didn’t seem worth the effort.”

I hold his wrists in my hands and send a pulse of healing power up his arms, mending all the damage he’s wrought there. Then I lean forward and kiss him on the forehead. “Well I believe you are. So I would be eternally grateful, as a favour to me, if you’d take a little more care with your person. After all, it’s something that is unspeakably precious to me.” A blush colours the alabaster of his cheeks and I smile, a giggle escaping my lips. “D’you know, it is one of my favourite pastimes trying to and succeeding in making you blush?”

His cheeks positively blaze, fever bright. He swallows, his voice uncertain but husky with want. “Did you, uh, work out what was most successful?”

 _Oh Julian, you beautiful idiot bird-boy, I have missed you so much._ “You are ridiculously kissable right now.”

He looks startled but hopeful.

I laugh. “Nope,” I tell him firmly, “I’m not doing anything with you until you’re clean.”

He lets out a shuddering sigh of disappointment and then follows it with the smallest twitch of a smile. “I’ll… I’ll fetch fresh water then.” He stands and straightens his back, squaring his shoulders as if he’s going to war rather than a well at the side of the tavern. He nods to himself as he picks up the bucket. “Right,” he murmurs.


	4. Chapter 4

While he labours with the water, I busy myself clearing away some of the broken furniture into the hearth and laying a fire. A spark of magic and the wood catches, blazing merrily. I wonder how long it’s been since Julian last ventured outside.

The door swings open and Malak glides in with an indignant caw before settling in the rafters: he’s obviously been feeling left out. Julian follows, closing the door behind him. Unlike me, he manages to easily carry the bucket in one taloned hand; he wasn't lying about his strength.

“I have returned,” Julian announces with an approximation of a flourish. “I come bearing… uh… a bucket?”

“Set it by the hearth please, as close to the fire as you can manage.”

He looks at me doubtfully. “Won’t it burn?”

“It might smoulder a bit, but the wood’s too wet to burn. It should warm the water up nicely though.”

Julian stands awkwardly, watching me as I fuss over the fire and set the bucket amidst the embers. I stand and brush the ash from my britches as I register Julian’s discomfort. “Do you want me to leave?” I hazard. “Or I could - if - I could wash you. If you like?”

The half-formed stricken look on his face melts into relief. “You... W-would you? Please?”

“Pull up a chair and face the hearth - I don’t want your wings getting singed.”

Meekly he obeys, perching on the rickety and too-small chair. I go to my pack and return with a waxed paper packet of soapwort and dried cloud-clover.

“What’s that?”

“You’ll see.” I shake some of the contents of the packet into my hand and crush it up between my fingers, sprinkling it into the warming water which immediately suds into a mild lather. “Much better.”

Julian sniffs. “It smells like, like…” He frowns. “What does that smell like?”

“Almonds, milk, honey and sunlight, I always thought…”

“Your hair!” he exclaims, before shutting his mouth with a snap and blushing again.

I laugh, rinsing the cloth in the fragrant water. “Well now we’ll match.” I start with what I can’t help but think of as his hair, despite the fact it’s thousands of narrow, dense feathers. They slick beneath the washcloth and once they’re clean I run my fingers through them, carding back from Julian’s temples and across his scalp.

He groans out a sigh and tips his head back. “’S nice,” he murmurs.

I pull my nails gently against his scalp a few more times just to watch how boneless it makes him. He makes a soft sound of protest when I finally stop and move on to his wings - they’re vast and the task is daunting. Many of the feathers are broken and matted together: it will likely take more than one wash to sort them out. I sigh and set to work. To my surprise - other than the clumps of dried blood sticking feathers together - the wings are relatively easy to clean. They’re coated in the thinnest sheen of their own natural oil which makes wiping away dust and dirt far simpler than I’d imagined. When I’m done, I stand back to admire them: they’re not solid black, just like Malak’s feathers they shine metallic blue-purple with hints of green as the light refracts across the barbs. They truly are very beautiful. Julian is dozing when I leave to empty the bucket and refill it with clean water. He awakes with a start as I’m warming the water and adding more crushed soapwort and cloud-clover.

“Lana!”

I reach up to put my hand on his knee. “I’m here, you’re alright.”

He swallows, eyes darting around to take in his surroundings. “I - I thought…” he shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Your wings are done - the rest of you should be a breeze in comparison. Do you know how huge your wings are?! Hells, I wouldn’t be surprised if you _could_ fly with them…” I chatter on as I wash him, admiring his feathers even as I note the valleys between each and every rib, the sharpness of his hipbones, the gaunt hollows of his cheeks. Julian had always been tall and trim, but misery had leeched away any meagre scrap of fat his body had ever held. I work my way down the plain of his chest, marvelling at the down-soft feathers, each one neatly formed, carefully layered amongst its kin. I have always had a difficult time keeping my hands to myself where Julian is concerned, but now I have to bite my lip not to start stroking my fingertips against the velvet of his plumage. I kneel to wash his hips and his long thighs; Julian’s eyes are closed, but I can still see the dusting of colour creeping across his cheeks and tingeing the tips of his ears. It is, I realise, the single most intimate thing via trust and touch that I’ve ever done with him. I feel my cheeks warming too and hastily rinse out the cloth in the soapy water. “Much more presentable,” I tell him with a smile. "I'll fetch some clean water so you can rinse off..."

He opens his eyes and offers a small, shy smile in return. “Thank you. … What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you want to wash?”

I’d been so focused on him I hadn’t really stopped to consider it. I glance down at my travel-stained britches and the ruin of my shirt, trying to recall when I’d last bathed or had a change of clothes. It could, I decide, have been a day or a month; time moves differently here. I go to my pack to see if I have any laundered clothes: I always have hated donning dirty clothes when I’m clean. I find a storm-grey linen shift with capped sleeves and pearl buttons. I don’t remember owning such a dress but I’m not in a position to be picky. I lie it on the top of my pack. “I’ll refresh the water…”

“No! I’ll do it.” Julian’s energy seems nervous and eager to please both at once. "Besides, if I go, I can just pour a bucketful of water over me... And, uh, save you the trouble."

I nod. “Alright. Thank you.” I stand by the hearth and pull off my stockings and then undo my heavy belt and unbutton my britches, wriggling them off before warming myself by the fire. As an after-thought I pull the pins from my hair, letting the wild silvery tendrils loose to exude round my head like thistledown. I stash the pins on the mantlepiece for safekeeping. I hear the door and turn just in time to see Julian lurch to a stop and almost drop the bucket. He stares at me by the fireside in my smalls and the ruins of what had once been a rather nice linen shirt.

“Er… Lana…” his voice is strained. “Here’s - uh, here’s the water.” For a few moments he doesn’t move before he resolutely fixes his eyes to his feet and the floor and carries the bucket to the hearth.

“Thank you.” I kneel down and add a little soapwort and cloud-clover to the water and push it up against the embers to warm, testing the temperature with my finger.

“Er…” Julian says again.

I look at him, one eyebrow raised in enquiry.

“That is, I mean… I should go.”

I frown. “Go where?”

He scans the wreckage of the Hanged Raven desperately: there are no back rooms or conveniently curtained alcoves, nowhere a gentleman may retire to in order to afford a lady privacy. “Into the corner?” he suggests.

I’m usually faster on the uptake, but in my defence, it has been a _very_ long day. “Why?” I ask, turning back towards the fire and stepping out of my smalls, crossing my arms at my waist and pulling my shirt up over my head before discarding it on the floor with the rest of my clothes. I prod at the bandages round my shoulders, failing to find where Julian had tucked away the end no matter how I pull at them.

Julian makes a strangled noise and then strides to the fireside. “Stand still,” he orders, and his voice is steadier than I’ve heard it in a long time. He holds out my right arm and deftly seeks out the folded end of bandage before unwrapping it. He casts the bandage into the fire before holding out my left arm and repeating the procedure. I reach towards the bucket and washcloth, needing to rid myself of the remnants of dried blood scabbed across my skin. “I _said_ stand still.” His voice is low but there’s a snap of command to it still. This isn’t Julian, I realise - this is Dr Devorak.

He washes the blood from my back, his movements tightly precise ensuring every fleck of vitae is removed so he can glare at my unmarred skin and satisfy himself that not even the smallest of wounds remain. He starts on my arms next, moving the cloth back and forth in short arcs over my scars as if seeing whether they can be cleaned away too, an unhappy look in his eyes when they stubbornly remain. By the time he’s washing my fingers he seems to have fallen into a meditative, almost trance-like state, wholly invested in his task. I watch him from under lowered lashes, unable to decide whether I am a puzzle to solve, a specimen to clean, or something infinitely rare to be treasured; all three perhaps. I stand still and silent as Julian washes the last of the blood from my collarbones, once more scrutinising my skin minutely, needing to know beyond all doubt that I am healed. The cloth runs down my ribs, my breasts and stomach, every movement precise and definitive in its care, the smooth curve of his talons stroking along my skin after the washcloth.

There are a smattering of scrapes and bruises dotted across my body, souvenirs from my travels. Julian treats each mark carefully, his brows knifing down as he studies the evidence to ensure it is only a half-healed cut or bruise and nothing more sinister. The phosphor-white intensity of Julian’s scrutiny and attention makes my cheeks flush, and yet despite his infinite care there is a coolness to his movements. I wonder if corpses feel like this when washed for burial by their loved ones - not a ritual I nor any of the plague victims were afforded. Once we expired, bloody lips and sunken scarlet eyes, we were dispatched to the ovens to transmute by fire into ash and brittle, charred, remains. I feel tears stinging at the edge of my vision and raise a hand to brush away my own self-pity. My movement snaps Julian out of his trance and he drops the washcloth onto my foot as if it’s a coal burning his hand, straightening up so fast he almost loses his balance.

“I - Lana - I - I… I’m sorry,” he manages.

“Are you? That’s a pity. I’m not. I suppose I'd better rinse off at the well..."

"No! I'll fetch fresh water. You should stay by the fire." He grabs the bucket, water sloshing over the side and onto the boards as he stalks out. When he returns he doesn't seem to know where to look or even where to put himself. He settles for standing with his back to me, furling and unfurling his wings nervously, the feathers drying in the firelight and taking on a deep starlight sheen.

"Could you pass me my shift, please?" I ask once I've rinsed off. "It’s chilly away from the fire.”

Julian all but bolts to my pack, returning with the dress held out in one hand, his gaze firmly tacked to the floor. I take the proffered garment but stay for a few more moments naked in the golden warmth of the flames, drying off. I slip the shift over my head and tug it down over myself. The fit is loose and the garment only comes to my knees; it reminds me of the sun-dresses the farmer’s children wore in the village Asra said I grew up in. I pick and prod at one of the pearl buttons. Perhaps this dress is mine, perhaps my mother sewed it for me? Perhaps I treasured it before I forgot my past? I squeeze my eyes shut and rub at them, but the expected crippling headache doesn’t come, thank the gods.

“Lana?”

“I’m alright.”

Julian’s standing a few feet away, resolutely looking at one of the filthy windows by the door, or perhaps the flickering candle on its sill. I approach, almost silent on my bare feet - I always have been good at stealth. I step to the side so I’m in his periphery vision beyond the curve of his wing; I’ve seen what those things can do to furniture and am in no hurry to be batted to the floor with a broken arm because he’s startled. I reach up a hand and run my palm down the outer curve of his coverts.

He shivers.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“No, it’s - I’m - I’m just not used to it. Being touched.” He tries to smile but the attempt is off.

I tip my head to the side, damp hair spilling across my shoulder. “Would you rather I didn’t?”

“No! Please? I - I miss it - I’ve missed you. I just…”

“Have to remember it doesn’t hurt?”

His eyes widen, then soften in gratitude. “Yes, yes something like that. Trust _you_ to know.” He huffs a little laugh. “What did I ever do to deserve having you in my life?”

I’m uncomfortable with the reverence in his voice. “Something terribly wicked I expect,” I tell him primly, sliding my arms loosely round his hips and nestling close enough that I can rest my cheek against his chest.

“Your curls tickle,” he complains fondly.

“As do your feathers,” I bat back, although that’s a lie. His feathers are slightly damp but perfectly sleek against my skin and soft as anything. I hum a noise of contentment similar to a purr.

One of his arms wraps loosely around me whilst the talons of his right hand thread carefully back and forth through my messy ringlets.

We both stay like that for minutes - for eternity - breathing one another in, grounding the combined weight of our triumphs and tragedies as we cling to one another. “It will be alright,” I murmur with surety against his breastbone.

“You always say that - how on earth do you know?” he complains.

“I know,” I say with a smirk, well aware how it will annoy him.

“Wretch!” His hands move, one now solidly at my shoulders and the other by my knees as he suddenly scoops me up into his arms.

I squeak as I’m hoisted into the air and guiltily notice how Julian immediately glances towards his talons, checking I’m free of them. “Seven hells - put me down!”

“That pretty mouth of yours is surprisingly foul-spoken,” he observes lightly.

I smile. “So shut it up,” I suggest.


	5. Chapter 5

For a second his grin is knife-ish and lascivious: I’m reminded of when he fell off the end of the staircase and was caught up in the vines, turning his hips and arching his back in a wicked display of wantonness that had me wanting to laugh and kiss him and never stop. Now, unlike then, doubt cools his ardour. “I… I…” he shakes his head, scowling.

I reach my knuckles up to trace lightly against the downy edge of his jaw. He shivers and tilts his head towards the touch. “I love you,” I remind him. “And whilst I do miss the red of your hair, I am a willing convert to the silk and sheen of your feathers.”

His expression wavers, preening and distraught at once.

“But, there - there doesn’t… we don’t have to ever do anything you don’t want to. Just being with you is enough.” I smile reassuringly at him because it’s the truth. Strange though it may seem to anyone else, I’m still attracted to Julian, talons, feather and all. I think it’s because I meant what I said: I was never in love with anything as superficial as his looks - I was in love with _him_ and all the wonderful, scholarly, adventuring, caring, infuriating, panicking, charismatic and idiot facets of his character. They're all still there, despite the fact he's changed his coat for a set of wings. 

He sighs out a long breath and dips his head to rest his forehead against mine, for a moment he looks peaceful before his expression curdles and his eyes squeeze more tightly shut as if there are words in his head he’s trying to ignore whilst their volume is steadily rising.

“Julian?” I stroke his cheek and then tidy the lengths of feathers by his ear. “I’m not disappointed.”

He almost drops me. “W-what?” He stares, eyes like storm clouds. “ You - how did you... Is that magic then? Knowing what I’m thinking?”

I shake my head. “What on earth happened between you and Asra that you mistrust magic so deeply? No, it’s not magic, it’s logic. Y’know - cognitive reasoning? Putting the puzzle pieces together? A diagnosis, if you will.”

“I should never have taken you on as an assistant,” he says with mock bitterness before his words catch up with him and he shivers. _“I shouldn’t have taken you on as an assistant,”_ he repeats softly, meaning every word and lowering me back to the floor so I can stand on my own. As soon as I’m released from his arms he turns away, wings raising high; I know he wants to run away, and it scares me to think where he might run to.

I duck under the curve of his right wing to stand in front of him and block his path. “Julian - STOP. For goodness sake, please stop…”

The points of his teeth flash in a feral smile. “I can’t. _He_ won’t let me.”

I’m back-footed. “He…?” From the venom in his tone I know he means the Devil; I only ask to buy myself time.

“I’m not invulnerable, I can be hurt the same as anybody else. But if it goes too far…” Absently he reaches up, his talons ghosting over his ribs on the left where skin meets feathers. “The Devil doesn’t like to lose his toys before he’s tired of them.”

I scowl as I see a mark, silver-white and puckered: a scar.

My mouth opens and I resolutely close it again. I want to say 'tell me you didn’t!’ Or perhaps, ‘that’s not true!’ But it is true. Julian tried to kill himself. By the shape of the scar I’d wager he pushed a dagger between his ribs and up towards his heart. I’m silent for a minute or more. Finally I ask, “Do you still have it?”

“What?”

“Do you still have it? The dagger you used?”

“I… no,” he admits.

“Right. In that case, before our travels are over, we need to visit a market and I need to acquire a stiletto - or a main-gauche, I’m not fussed which - hells, even a bloody kitchen knife will do.”

“You… why?”

“Because,” I growl, “I have a killing need to make goat shish kebab!”

“Lana, you…”

“No! Don’t you dare tell me I can’t! He has bound you and tormented you to destruction and I’m going to _fucking stab him!”_

Julian is oddly still. At last he asks, “Where did you learn Nevivon swearwords?”

I glower at him mulishly. _“Take a wild guess.”_

He rubs a hand across his forehead. “Pasha,” he mutters, wincing.

There is silence in the Hanged Raven save for the crackling of the fire as it devours wood and the occasional ‘torrk-torrk’ sort of noise that Malak makes as he settles himself in the rafters. I look at Julian who looks at his feet. I had meant to talk to him, try to persuade him that he isn’t responsible for every cataclysm in my world. But then the conversation twisted, and I learnt that he’d wished he were dead, and now the combination of our past and his chains weigh heavily upon me. I can feel my shoulders sag, reluctant to bear the burden. “Are you tired?” I ask, trying to mask the hope in my voice.

“I… I’ve never… I’m not certain when I last slept.”

“Care to try?” I would have liked to sound flirtatious, but I lack the energy - Julian’s admission of attempted self-destruction has rather punched a hole straight through my heart and I’ll need a little while to regain my footing. My eyes close against the trials I still have to face and for a second I want to drop, to curl up on the floor and cry. I don’t realise I’ve actually started to sink to my knees until I feel Julian catch me.

“Lana?”

“‘M alright.”

“Forgive me,” he says in the tones of Dr Devorak, “but I’ve heard that before and it never boded well.”

“Please just - just lie next to me. Curl up… Just…” I wave a hand in the direction of the pile of cloaks and blankets. I’ve found that you can neglect sleep, pain, and sustenance for a time, but eventually like a breaking damn it all catches up with you swift enough to drown. Julian’s confession had been the hole in the dam I was unable to plug and yet the one that felt like it was losing heart’s blood with every breath. “I’ll - I’ll…” My skull is filling with static and I can’t find the words I need.

Julian lifts me up in his arms again and stalks over to the nest of cloaks, coats and blankets beneath the window. He lays me down and tidies me beneath the coverings as best he can. He means to leave but I refuse to let go from around his neck, clinging there as if my life depends upon it even as my eyes close and consciousness slips away from me.

* * *

Sometime later, I’m aware of an ebony smoothness stroking itself against my temple and gliding down to the edge of my jaw.

“Lana?”

I don’t want to open my eyes. My fingers reach instinctively towards warmth and then tarry on the sleek softness they find, exploring gently. It feels like Malak, but Malak would rather his shorter feathers were vigorously rubbed back and forth than softly carded by fingernails.

Warm fingers with alarmingly long and cool talons grasp my hand and bring the back of it to a set of lips so kisses may be bestowed. I open my eyes to see Julian kissing my knuckles one by one.

“Morning,” I offer.

His eyes are tired and red rimmed, but I can’t remember a time Julian didn’t look tired, running off of shear bravado. The bravado is absent now, its lack making him look younger somehow and more vulnerable.

“Did you sleep?”

He shakes his head. “No, but I watched you do so, which was almost as restorative.”

“Oh Julian, do be serious!” I complain.

“I was!” He’s indignant. “I dozed a little. And watching you sleep is very… calming.”

I sigh and make a wordless sound of frustration and distress as the memories of yesterday come spilling back. Julian shifts to lay the lanky expanse of himself against my back, feathered arms and thighs curling round me as well as one wing until I’m snug against him and all I can see are feathers. “I’ve got you,” he whispers. “It’s alright. I’ll keep you safe.”

I tilt my head back against his chest, straining my neck to meet his gaze. “And what about the other way around?”

“What of it?”

“Will you allow me to keep _you_ safe?”

His lips twitch into a melancholy smile. “I don’t imagine I can stop you, can I?”

“No,” I tell him firmly.

He sighs and wraps his limbs more tightly around me. “Always so headstrong.”

For a time, I am both warm and content until I become aware of a coldness criss-crossing against my back: the Devil’s chains.

“What are you thinking about?”

It’s a while before I answer him. “Ashnemain of the Silver Cord.”

I know without looking how his brows buckle down, lancing over his eyes in confusion - I can hear the expression in his voice. “Ashen _who?”_

“It’s a faerytale,” I tell him. “Asra had a book - filled with tales collected from all over - and he used to read it to me when… when…”

“When you first came back?” he guesses.

I nod and then let out an awkward laugh. “The first thing I remember is Asra’s voice reading those faerytales.”

“You are a magician; I suppose it’s appropriate for you to be reborn from tales of wonder and sorcery.” He sighs in mock consternation. “You never do anything by halves, Lana, do you?”

I snort, amused. “Apparently not. Anyway. Ashnemain was a witch who was pursued by a powerful… Harbinger? That’s the word the book used - I don’t think it has a proper translation into Vesuvian. The - this Harbinger wanted to end the world, and initially Ashnemain had used all her power to try to stop him. They battled each other for ages, turning tears into oceans and hair combs into forests, tethering demon horses with golden saddles, that sort of thing.”

“If you say so.”

“…Have you never read faerytales?”

“Eh, Mazelinka was fonder of sea-shanties and the occasional tale of daring-do. Piracy. Swashbuckling and the like.”

I feign a groan. “Dear gods, that explains _so_ much. Anyway. In her studies, Ashnemain discovers a realm of chaos and change; no one who enters it can return the same as they were.”

I can sense Julian frown again. “What sort of change are we talking about? He was brunette and now he’s blond?”

“No! Profound change. As in, he was once a Harbinger of terrible power and now he’s a baker. Or a flax shirt. Or a waif from the docks. Or a blackberry pie!”

“That doesn’t make the least bit of sense…”

“The point is,” I persist, “that realm will remake him into something far less dangerous, possibly something entirely inert…”

“Does this realm actually exist or is this something made up?”

I consider before answering, remembering the pools and stars that were gateways to a thousand realms. “I… I’m not sure. I don’t know.”

“Well _that’s_ comforting…”

“So, Ashnemain lures the Harbinger into the realm of change. When he returns, he’s a Shapeshifter - or, well, I think they meant ‘he had shifted shape’ - as in he had changed, because the story never mentions him _actually_ changing into an animal or anything…” I swallow, feeling I’m doing a good job of telling this story spectacularly badly. “But the point is, the biggest change wrought in him is now he’s hopelessly in love with Ashnemain and seeks to marry her. Ashnemain fears that if she doesn’t marry him, his love will sour and help forge him back into a Harbinger again.”

“Charming. Did she acquire a silver knife and gut him on their wedding night?”

“No! She petitioned the moon for help - the Shapeshifter was still more powerful than she was and she wanted a way to even the odds. The moon was kind and unspooled a little of herself and fashioned it into a silver cord before placing it within Ashnemain’s soul…”

“Don’t tell me - this is why the moon waxes and wanes?”

“Obviously - you really haven’t read any faerytales, have you?”

“Obviously,” he parrots, amused. “Does Ashnemain bind the Shapeshifter in the heart of a mountain for a thousand years?”

“No. She marries the Shapeshifter.”

“Not to offend, Lana, but I’m not sure I see the point of faerytales - in general or in the particular...”

“He adores her, and she binds him with her love and the silver cord ensuring he never desires anything but her.”

“That’s… unexpectedly suggestive,” Julian mutters. Then sharply, "Wait! You never mentioned she ever loved him back..."

I'm thinking of him tangled in the vines again and am glad he can’t see the heat I feel rising to my cheeks as I stutter a laugh. "In folk tales Moon-kin are very possessive. What they love they protect and what they protect they love - even if it destroys them." The White Fox. The Red Bull. The Velvet Mare. The Golden Hart. The Silver Boar. All stories between a young lad or lass and something considered monstrous who only wants to keep safe what's their's.

"Hm," he swallows and asks oh-so-casually, “So... Why _were_ you musing on Ashnemain?”

 _Because I want to break your chains and fashion a silver cord of love and moonlight so you feel secure, so the Devil can’t touch you, so I can never lose you again,_ I think fiercely. Instead I stretch and wriggle against him, pretending not to hear the bitten off gasp my action solicits in response. “Can’t a girl simply awake from dreams of binding her lover with moonlight?”

Julian’s breathing hitches.

"Am I yours?" I ask, craning my head back so my mouth is a whisper away from his neck, and at the same time he can see the bared expanse of my throat.

His breathing stutters. "If - if you'd care to be? I'd certainly like that."

My lips twitch up into a new sort of smile I've never worn before, sharp and narrow. "Then you're mine," I tell him as faint shafts of moonlight guild his feathers pearly-white at the edges and I twist to nip sharp kisses across his jaw and further up to the opening softness of his lips.

(I’m grateful he's never read faerytales. I’m grateful I’ve never had to try such a low trick on Asra as I'm planning to try on Julian. Asra would know exactly why I'm thinking of Ashnemain.)

I should feel sorry for the trust I'm about to break, but although I will it, contrition doesn't come.


	6. Chapter 6

I turn in his grasp and he loosens his arms and retracts his wing, allowing me to lie beside him, propped up on my elbows. His face is very pale and his lips - gently parted - very pink. His eyes are wide and sheened silver with desire. He swallows. “We… we should probably… get up,” he tries - a valiant attempt doomed to fail.

 _“Mm,”_ I agree as I sit up and, with the casual poise exhibited by cats and festival dancers, extend and then crook one leg over his hips so he’s rolled onto his back and I’m sitting astride him. I stretch and settle myself more securely. “Was this what you meant?”

“Lana…”

The down that lines his hips brushes silkily across the inside of my thighs. I grasp the hem of my shift and pull it up over my head before discarding it. I find his wrists and clasp one in each hand before gently forcing his arms to rise above the axis of his shoulders and the curve of his wings until they are raised above his head.

“Lana…” he says horsely, my name barely able to stutter from his lips. “What are you…”

I think of my tarot cards, bargained away to Scout for her aid. I’d missed them at first, but the longer I travelled with her through the realms the smaller the sacrifice seemed to me. I didn’t need the cards - perhaps I never had. If I closed my eyes and slipped deep inside myself, I could feel the power and patterns of the Arcana as they influenced the world. I could call a card to the fore in my mind’s eye and hear the whispers and secrets it held, just as I had when I dealt the cards for customers in my shop.

I call up the Hanged Man firmly in my mind and lie him over Julian until he fits and colours him like light from a stained-glass window, shadow feathers merging with his own. Next I muse upon the Moon, waiting for her to show her light in the rich blue of the night sky. For a moment I fear she will not speak to me, but then silver paints its cool blush on the edge of everything, and I see more than hear a sleek grey wolf raise her muzzle in salute and howl her greeting to the sky. I’ve never attempted such magic before - have never heard of such magic before - except for in faerytales. It feels as if hours have passed and yet I know that all this has only been between one breath and the next.

 _Luna, gracious lady of the night sky, lend me your aid. Let the purity of your light chase the poison from his soul, let your serenity confound the Devil, let my love forge a silver cord…_ It becomes a chant, a litany in my head as I shift my hips back and forth causing Julian to moan helplessly and the heat of his arousal to build. I bow my head to kiss him, licking past the points of his teeth to the warmth beyond. Julian starts to writhe, his eyes heavy-lidded, his hips aching to thrust up against mine. He’s far stronger than I, it would take the smallest fraction of his power to shake off my hands and move freely to gain what he craves. But he doesn’t; he holds himself taught and locked beneath me, pressing against me and melting back as desire unravels him.

_Luna, gracious lady of the night sky, lend me your aid. Let the purity of your light chase the poison from his soul, let your serenity confound the Devil, let my love forge a silver cord…_

There’s a molten liquid heat between my legs now and I close my eyes for a moment, trying to maintain the juggling act of my growing want, Julian, and the two Arcana whose aid I’ve enlisted. Magic, as Asra explained to me, is an energy, one that can be fuelled by practically anything. Devotion, blood, lust, fury, hate, joy, or despair. It’s not the colour of the emotion or the nature of the sacrifice that matters, it’s the belief and intensity behind it. I’d never attempted this sort of magic before and if I’d had any other choice would not be attempting it now: keeping all my thoughts and feelings in neat lines to be woven together when my body's insisting I ignore all this mystical rubbish my mind's tangling itself in is getting more complicated by the second.

_Luna, gracious lady of the night sky, lend me your aid. Let the purity of your light chase the poison from his soul, let your serenity confound the Devil, let my love forge a silver cord…_

The silver that still edges all I see flares together beneath my palms and coalesces in a woven metallic braid, binding Julian’s wrists, a soft, pale light against the shadows of the Hanged Man. I move my hands away, keeping a thread of moonlight tucked against my palms. I run my nails down his chest and watch as his eyes open in surprise, his arms flexing against the binding which holds him fast.

“Lana - how…?”

“Magic,” I whisper against him. “Do… do you want me?”

_“Yes - oh gods yes…”_

I stroke my fingers against the feathers across his chest as I lift my hips higher so I can guide him inside me.

(The trick, I remind myself, one hand guiding, the other trailing nails against his chest and searching for the coldness of his chains, is to keep things seamless - effortless - despite the effort it costs. The trick is to concentrate very hard whilst not thinking about it. Above all, the trick is not to get a nosebleed or pass out. My left hand snags on the icy links of the Devil’s chains as Julian pushes slickly inside me. My fist clenches, pressing one of the moonlight threads to a link of chain and causing spider-silk strands of silver to contaminate the Devil’s alchemy. The feeling of Julian inside me and the power of the Arcana blazing through me is exquisite; every touch is like lightning blazing down my nerves.)

I can gauge as Julian’s climax nears and builds in the breathless stutter of air panting from his lips and the desperate bucking of his hips as he heedlessly chases the ecstasy he knows he’ll find within me.

_Luna, gracious lady of the night sky, lend me your aid. Let the purity of your light chase the poison from his soul, let your serenity confound the Devil, let my love forge a silver cord…_

“Oh gods,” he gasps. “Oh gods, Lana…”

I close my eyes, allowing my magic to feast upon our twined passion as I force all the power at my disposal towards the hated link of chain I can feel chilling my fingers. I watch the link warp and shatter, feeling the force of it in my soul like a brick to the back of the skull. (The trick, I reiterate sternly to myself, is _not_ to pass out.)

_Luna, gracious lady of the night sky, lend me your aid. Let the purity of your light chase the poison from his soul, let your serenity confound the Devil, let my love forge a silver cord…_

I watch as the softly shining cord that binds Julian’s wrists melts and flows towards my palms, sinewy and elegant like Faust, splicing itself with the threads I still clasp and the mono-fine filaments holding the rest of the Devil’s chain together. I direct the light, hoping, praying - _Luna, gracious lady of the night sky, lend me your aid. Let the purity of your light chase the poison from his soul, let your serenity confound the Devil, let my love forge a silver cord_ \- and see the dull ember of the chains cool, quenched by moonlight which now burns through every link, melting them together, fusing them into a storm-bright serpentine cord that glows softly in coils about Julian’s aura.

The sky feels too heavy all of a sudden, I almost pitch straight against Julian’s chest, but I catch myself on shaky arms just in time. (The trick - the trick is…) I force my eyes open and concentrate on Julian’s face as well as the pleasant thrum of his orgasm I can still feel inside me. He smiles up at me, sated and hazy, before his expression sharpens.

“Lana - your eyes!”

“What about my eyes?” (Oh gods let them not be bleeding… The trick is…)

“They - I thought… It must have been the light. For a moment I thought they were silver-white - like the moon.” He chuckles to himself. “You’ve bewitched me!” he teases.

I smile although I don’t share his amusement, because I have: bewitched and enchanted and bound him by love and by moonlight, and if the Devil wants him back, he’ll have to get through me first. My arms tremor and I know they’ll betray me; I disentangle our bodies and then drape myself across Julian’s chest, my head crooked against his shoulder.

"Did I please you?" he asks quietly.

I smile. "Yes, very much."

"I mean... were you - were you satisfied?"

I hum quietly in a manner that could be taken for assent. I'm so wrung out by over-stimulation and magic that I have no wish to do anything but lie exactly where I am.

His right hand, all but one talon curled into his palm, reaches down into the star-pale wildness of my hair, catching at snarls, springs and ringlets.

“You look like a dandelion gone to seed.”

I roll my eyes - he has a point. _“Flatterer.”_

Asra had never told me what happened when a person drained their magic dry and then sucked out the marrow of their soul too. In fairness he probably didn’t even know. Unfortunately for me, I’m about to find out. Ignorant of what I’d done, Julian laughs, warm and easy, scooping me up and wrapping a blanket around us both. It’s a comfort as darkness claims me.


	7. Chapter 7

I awake, and no matter how long I’ve slept my body is screaming at me that it isn’t enough. I groan, feeling tired and pathetic and far rather I was still unconscious.

“Lana?”

I feel the cool curve of the back edge of Julian’s talons caressing my cheek and moving down to pause at the pulse of my neck. I wonder whether his talons might not be as adept as his fingertips at accounting a heart’s health. I make a vague noise in acknowledgement and curl more tightly towards myself, seeking warmth and further sleep.

“Lana… Lana? … _Lana where are this week’s reports?”_

Dr Devorak’s question forces an answer from me, I struggle to sit and point blindly towards the alcove of the clinic where his desk brooded, crowned with the cabinet filled with all his herbs and minerals he’d collected and experimented with, hoping against hope to stem the tide of the plague. “’S on your desk, I did finish them…” I offer weakly.

The back of Julian’s hand, skin tougher now and almost scaled, presses against my forehead in an attempt to gauge my temperature. “‘M fine,” I offer vaguely. The truth is my hare-brained ritual drained more magic from me than I ever imagined I might possess. I’m exhausted and feel ready to sleep for a century.

“Lana…”

Sitting up has become an unmaintainable effort. I tip towards the sound of Julian’s voice and allow gravity and darkness to claim me.

It’s almost as it was the first time – no, not the first time – the fourth? fifth? time we’d met, running from the palace guards and I fell into the reservoir and was bit by one of Lucio’s weird ghost eels. Gods knew why they were in the water supply to begin with; and before you ask, having one of those latch onto your side just above your hips is… well, you don’t so much feel the bite as feel a narrow, lancing pain and an inordinate amount of blood leave your body as the wound refuses to clot. They must have an anticoagulant in their mouths – leeches have similar.

Leeches…

Since the realms have merged it seems fragments of my memories are returning: some in dreams and nightmares some in ideas and feelings I know to be true. I remember writing a report about leeches and patients and adding pins to a vast map of Vesuvia, trying to track the plague’s movements to better understand how it spread…

I seem to know so many things and yet be ignorant of so many more. I know I love Julian – and he doesn’t want me to. He’s scared of me somehow; I’ve became an omen of ill-will about his neck when all I wish to do is free him from the chains he took on my behalf – chains I never asked him to shoulder. It’s infuriating! I wish I could be like Mazelinka and hit him with a skillet...

The feeling of weakness akin to blood-loss slowly fades.

I can feel something damp and cool on my forehead - a compress I suppose. A memory knifes into my brain, of fever and weakly coughing droplets of red as my eyes burn and bleed scarlet… A sound staggers from my throat as I struggle upright, my breath heaving, my limbs tense, the compress falling away from my skin. “NO! No…”

“Lana!” Sinewy arms clasp me, pulling me against skin and sleek feathers. “I’ve got you. You’re alright. I have you. You're awake now.” The words have a desperate edge, it’s not only me they seek to persuade.

My breathing calms and shakily I loop my arms around Julian’s waist, fingertips buried in the feathers that coat his spine.

His head and no doubt his wings are hunched towards me, his lips whispering against the crown of my head. “Dear gods, Lana, my darling, you’ve slept for almost two days!”

“Not very faerytale of me,” I murmur.

“What?”

“Faerytales - it’s always three. Should have been three days.”

“Another day of this and I would have been climbing the bloody walls!” he complains.

I strain to look towards the scattered tankards to the left of the hearth and the ever-present floating bottle that, to my astonishment, isn’t present at all. “Where did it go?”

Julian spares a brief glance to the empty corner before tacking his attention firmly back to me. “I don’t know and I most certainly do not care.”

I think of the moonlight searing through the Devil’s chains, re-forging them into something new. I wriggle, attempting to shift closer. Julian lets out a soft, throaty laugh, scooping me up in blankets and depositing me in his lap, cradling me with arms and wings.

 _Julian, you glorious idiot bird-boy. You are so very dear to me,_ I think. “Hello,” I say vaguely, watching the cloud grey of his eyes widen, my own still tired and heavy-lidded.

“Hello,” he echoes, shooing tendrils of silvery hair away from my forehead.

I smile and I’m sure I look like a half-wit, but I can’t find it within my heart to care. I can feel the silver cords, flexible as a shadow, eternal as moonlight, strong as love. I nuzzle against his shoulder, pushing against his chest and feeling the edge of feathers brush my nose, tickling softly and threatening me with sneezes. “I found you,” I tell him, whispering it against the down dusted over his breastbone.

“You did… You said you would.” A half-hearted chuckle. “I should have listened. … I’m sorry… I’m sorry I didn’t listen.”

“Idiot,” I inform him, half asleep against the warmth of his chest.

“Hm!” That noise is as close as his tattered pride will come to owning up to the accusation. “You found me… And I’ll never lose you again.”

“Tether,” I mumble, incoherent with exhaustion.

“What did you say?” When I make no answer, he hefts me up more snuggly into his embrace and buries his beaky nose into the curls of my hair. “Almonds… honey… milk… sunlight…”

His nails card gently through my hair, catching the strands and pulling out the ringlets to spread into frizzy curls. “D’you know, there are papers written that claim a women’s eyes are made for discerning the nuance of colour. So tell me. Are they white, or grey?”

I’ve barely registered the question. “Hm?”

“I never could decide. Silvery. In-between… But always wild… I swear I could always see you in an ill-lit room, just from the luminescence of your hair – always like moonlight…”

I want to laugh and tell him how my hair’s been this colour forever; well, since Asra’s known me at least. Oh… That means probably when I knew Julian as Dr Devorak too.

The children of Latch Street called me ‘the Wraith Witch’. I don’t remember it as a taunt as such, just a name, whispered to and fro from one set of lips masked by grubby fingers to small ears and then on to the next. But I do recall Asra’s troubled expression any time he heard it, as if the nickname pained him. I asked him if they’d always called me that. He laughed and quoted some poem about the ghosts of memory, claiming the name came about because of my amnesia. I believed him easily enough – it never occurred to me he would lie. Mostly I never understood why Asra was at such pains trying to save me from children’s make-believe. Naivety is a nice safe haven for as long as it lasts. Delusion a steady ship after that, but eventually the sharp and unforgiving rocks of truth scupper such misplaced kindnesses. Asra had always sought to keep me safe, even to the point of giving up half his heart...

The thought hits me like a cold pale of water. If Asra can make that sort of deal, what’s to stop me doing the same? He travelled between realms – but now the realms are muddled – I don’t need to travel anywhere.

I have the oddest sensation of the whole Arcana shuffling through my brain, cards flicking behind my eyes. I wince. It feels like a nosebleed I can’t stem or a sneeze that refuses to materialise. I wipe the back of my hand against my nose and check for vitae – it’s viscus enough to be blood but it’s iridescent pearl white. I hide it and my expression out of sight, trying to remember Julian’s question and fearful that any answer I may have is too late. Hair – he was talking about herbs and hair, something like that…

“Now we match,” I tell him, curling tighter against him and feeling the reassuring coolness of the moon’s bindings tethered and sunk bone deep in the scars across my wrists. It’s a strange sensation: when we’re close it’s gentle, but the further apart we are the more it feels like shards of ice.

Asra thought he had been selfish, bringing me back.

Hm. Perhaps he had. But not half as selfish as I’ve been.


	8. Chapter 8

I see now – I do. Oh gods I truly do…

We are all linked to the Arcana – Major or Minor – we all have our card, our fate if you will. Most play the card they’re dealt, unaware they can buck against it. But some who know or who are wilful or just plain arrogant, try to play the Arcana and therefore gain power they should never have. I think of the message of the Fool: _Remember who you are, become what you must._ It seems I’ve done both; perhaps I was never destined to remain under the Fool’s patronage forever.

I wonder if calling upon the Arcana of the Moon has affected my person or at least my looks… or not. Hard to tell. Mirrors, much like memories have been a movable feast in my experience, revealing as much as the hide. What little magic I’ve regained does seem more focused and less multicoloured, less fickle.

I shiver, all down my spine, and feel Julian curl closer around me.

I’m reminded of when Asra showed me how to see the strength of a person’s magic. His own power shone so beautifully – like a shooting star blazing through the firmament, or like a pure and endless waterfall cascading forever to fill a cold, still pool that no one dared touch. He said mine had been like the northern lights, forever changing vibrancy and colour: a magic that refused to choose. A magic that could achieve anything…

Well. Seems like I chose. ‘A curse from a witch who fears commitment’, Julian had once said of Asra. He can never say such a thing of me, although he might well say worse when he finds out.

I know what the Moon represents, it’s not entirely complimentary. Magic, tales, change, secrets and illusions; it’s a card that can hide as much as it reveals if you’re not careful. Self-knowledge and self-reliance are foremost amongst her lessons. I don’t know whether I chose her, or she chose me. Perhaps I’ve been foolish... No. All I can do is trust my instincts.

The Arcana flicker once more behind my eyes, swirling and fanning out in my mind, only this time when the cards stop there is one single card in view: a pair of cruel ruby-red eyes stare at me from a white pelt clothed in scarlet, black and gold. The Devil glowers at me, blackened talons reaching… I gasp out a choked cry and sit up, almost colliding with Julian’s nose and chin.

“Lana – what’s wrong?”

I swallow. “Someone’s coming,” I say tightly.

“Who?”

I close my eyes against the question, turning my head away. I struggle awkwardly into my shift and go to the mantlepiece to retrieve my silver pins; if I’m going to fight the Devil it would be best not to do so with my hair in my eyes.

Across the room, Julian slowly rises to his feet, every muscle tense. “Who’s coming?”

I shake my head, using my mouthful of pins as an excuse not to speak.

Feathers rustle and the midnight of his wings unfurl in alarm. “What did you do?”

I stab the final section of hair up and pin it in place. “What I always do. Cause trouble.” I attempt a smile but it fades, refusing to stay put. A red miasma starts to pool at the edges of my vision: the Devil has come for his due.

I hold out my hand to Julian, who, despite his misgivings closes the distance between us and grasps it carefully in his talons. “Don’t say a word. And whatever happens,” I tell him urgently, “whatever you see or hear, don’t let go.”

He nods once, purposeful. “I can manage that.”

Julian’s magic is a strange thing: like him it’s uncertain, hiding, too busy questioning itself and getting tied up in knots to step forward. Asra’s magic was always so open and easy to find, I think Julian hides his magic whether he knows he’s doing so or not. But in the Tower’s realm, when I’d held his hand and his power had eagerly answered my call… that proved that whether he was aware or not, Julian had a very deep reserve of latent magic. Even if he wasn’t willing to use it he’d allowed me the liberty when we were touching skin to skin.

The Star said I was the only one who could stop the Devil. Just because I didn’t succeed the first time doesn’t make her wrong. Besides, she can only speak the truth: she hasn’t failed me, I’ve failed her. Not a mistake I mean to make again.

 _“I don’t appreciate having my toys taken away.”_ The voice is rich and silken like fine wine – if wine could be fermented from malice. The Devil towers in the doorway, hunching so his horns fit under the lintel before stepping forward and almost catching them on a rafter.

“Mind your head,” I offer with sparkling insincerity.

I can feel Julian’s talons tremble in my hand.

“Mind your tongue! You have been meddling in things that do _not_ concern you…”

Julian manages to tear his horrified gaze from the creature in front of him and down to me, his eyes wide with desperate questions. “What did you _do?”_ he utters almost soundlessly.

“Yes, you troublesome little flea, the good doctor posits an excellent question. _What did you do?”_ The fury of his words rolls over us like a storm, filling the air with thundering oppression and causing dark chains to manifest and writhe around his cloven hooves.

I smile, a narrowly vulpine – or is that lupine? – quirk of my lips. “Ah... Clearly someone else who’s never read faerytales…”

“You pathetic worm of a creature!” There isn’t room for him to pace without knocking his horns on the beams, but his claws are clenched into fists at his sides and he is practically vibrating with hate.

“I broke his chains.” There seems little point putting off saying it, but beside me Julian lets out a low moan of alarm.

The Devil’s lips curl upwards in a vicious smile. “You fool! You’ve overstepped your bounds now, little witch! Oh, this is delicious… I shall have two new playthings in place of one. Don’t try to deny it, we already know the good doctor will bargain his soul away for you in a heartbeat….” Chains wriggle and writhe, slinking towards Julian and me. “I wonder how many bones of his I shall have to break, how many feathers I’ll tear out, how long he’ll scream before you offer your soul to me in exchange for an end to his suffering? I, for one, am _very_ eager to find out…”

I can’t breathe: every word he says is a weight crushing my chest and splintering my ribs. I push back with everything I have - it’s not a spell or incantation, it’s nothing I was ever taught – it’s just terror and determination and… scars. Every scar I received from the realms looking for friends, stability, allies – and yes, looking for Julian. The realms and the Arcana take their price, one way or another...

My wrists not only burn but blaze like phosphor and I don’t want to but I can’t help but scream.

 _“The silver cords are yours.”_ The words are cool and clear, like a silence amidst the rusty crimson-tinged noise and pain of the Devil’s presence. “ _Best take command of them…”_

It feels as if I understand in an instant, but pushing through the pain takes a lot longer. I hold onto the agony of my scars, feeling the silver of the cords anchored in my bones, their light even now repulsing the angry attacks of the Devil’s chains.

Merged realms - a universe where nothing changes and nothing ends, the Devil had said. But that wasn’t true in the end. The Arcana cannot lie, I know that, but who’s to say they can’t be wrong? Worlds turn, stars move, night follows day – nothing and no realm is static. If nothing changed how could I have found Julian and transformed his chains? The Devil has fallen prey to his own propaganda. That’s where a narrow viewpoint will get you - typical. ‘Do you know how powerful you would be there?’ the Devil had taunted. ‘You would have anything you wanted. You could have forever…’

All magic takes its toll and extracts a price. I can give up forever. Surely that’s coin enough in exchange to beat the Devil?

I call upon Julian’s magic, that dark reservoir of power, cool and still as a lake. Just as before it heeds my call eagerly, flowing to twine with my own. I hold out my right hand, palm up and coil my fingers around the moonlight cord I can feel flowing from the silver-white of my scars. I push my magic into it, mine and Julian’s both, willing it to change as the Moon changes, to show the facet I need it to reveal. My teeth are gritted together so tightly I fear they might crack, and my left hand is locked in a death-grip around Julian’s talons. With agonising slowness, the light of the cord solidifies and flows, molten, into the artefact I require. I hold it firmly feeling the reassuring coolness of the wire-wrapped handle that fits so snuggly in my palm. It shines brightly, cutting through the scarlet of the smoky atmosphere emanating from the Devil’s chains.

“Inaction,” I growl. “That’s one of your tricks. Convincing everyone they’re bound and powerless, convincing them only _you_ can save them.”

The Devil stares at the long-bladed Vesuvian punch dagger that I’m now holding in my fist, the metal of it as white as moonlight, as hard as diamonds.

“Here’s the thing: in order to free yourself from what binds you, one must take action.” I swat at the nearest chain which fizzes like a fuse all the way down its length before falling to ash.

“What – what are you doing?”

“Taking action,” I say, caught between annoyance and grim determination, stabbing another two chains in swift succession.

The Devil bellows in rage and flings up one clawed hand to direct all the chains towards Julian. “I will take _everything_ from you and tear it into bloody _giblets!”_

To my relief Julian doesn’t let go of my hand, but his wings rise in defence, trying to shield him from the onslaught. There’s a blaze of silvery light and several more chains fizzle to dust. There is a silver cord, crisscrossed in complex knots that’s tied like a lattice over Julian’s hips and torso: the chains cannot bind him without destroying themselves.

The Devil’s face contorts in a surfeit of ire. “What have you done? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”

I find the strength to grin, wide and feral as I advance towards him, pulling Julian in my wake. “Better run, goat-boy, because I’m coming for you.”

“He made a _deal_ …”

“Deal’s off.”

“You – how? You can’t…”

“I can and I have. Didn't you say you were fascinated to find out what I became when the realms fragmented?” I stab gleefully at any chains within striking range. “Bet you're regretting that, you condescending wanker. Now I suggest you _fuck off_ before I work out what else I can do!” I draw my arm back, intending to ram the dagger into his face, striking forward and up with every ounce of strength I have…

At the last moment before the point of the dagger makes contact with the long line of his snout, the Devil vanishes.

Wrongfooted and off-balance, it’s only Julian’s hand in mine that stops me from pitching forward face-first onto the floor. “Ugh – sneaky goat faced _bastard_ ,” I huff out in frustration. Julian lets go of my hand; the knotted cords and the silver dagger both dwindle and fade like moonbeams before the oncoming dawn. He’s looking at his hands, at his feet, at anything that isn’t me, his wings hunched.

“Well,” I say with a laugh. “That went better than expected. … Julian?” He’s still not looking at me. “Are you alright?”

“You broke my chains,” he says, voice flat and quiet with an undercurrent of anger. “I asked you not to. I thought you understood. After everything that’s happened, everything I’ve been through… You broke my chains.”

“I…”

_“What gives you the right?”_

“I’m a witch who loves you – I _claim_ the bloody right!”

“Magicians,” he spits bitterly.

That’s the last word he speaks for three days. He broods by the hearth instead, refusing to look at me, hunching away from my touch. He doesn’t sleep as far as I can tell, just sits, a gloomy feeling of hurt and despair wrapped around him like a blanket.


	9. Chapter 9

His anger cools rapidly, but his mood persists. It’s almost as it was at the very start when I’d step forward wanting to know who Julian was and why he’d broken into my shop to demand a reading, why he’d tucked a starstrand bloom into my hair, why he’d taken all day showing me markets and taverns and narrow lanes full of street-venders, buskers and hawkers, flower girls and charlatan occultists, only to tell me he was poison at the end of it and that I should stay away from him. I’d felt so frustrated and confused - annoyed too - that this stranger should make me care for him and his company only to unceremoniously push me away.

That was our dance at the start: I’d step forward and he’d unerringly step back, creating space between us, warning me off even when it was clear it wasn’t what either of us wanted. But he’d learnt in the other realms to trust not only his judgement but mine, to accept help from others and not to take the whole world’s burden upon his own shoulders. The Devil has taken that from him, his new-found trust and confidence, and twisted it into something dark and self-deprecating.

I won’t accept his idiocy – because that’s exactly what it is, bless and damn him. I know he’s stronger than this. If he can only trust himself… I understand why Portia was always so stern with him, threatening to box his ears; and why Mazelinka always wielded that long wooden spoon.

Removing Julian’s chains should have returned him to his old self, debonair smile, unruly red hair and all; and yet it hasn’t. This puzzles me until I look at Julian with my magic and the cold eyes of the Moon. Julian’s aura is like an inky cloak; his magic forms a stubborn shell all around him, preventing the last of the Devil’s power from unravelling. I bite my lip as tears sting my eyes. _Oh Julian, you blessed idiot…_

He hasn’t changed back because he doesn’t believe he deserves to. He's punishing himself and doesn't even realise it.

When I was newly resurrected, Asra used to leave games for me, riddles and puzzles to solve while he was busy with work. At first they were simple things – toys whittled for children really – a box that would only open when I had slotted in the different shaped pegs into their respective holes in the lid. A triangle, a circle, a square, a rectangle, a hexagon, a pentagram and a seven-pointed star. I always started with the pentagram, despite it being the second most difficult. Asra smiled, sad and amused both at once when he saw that; pentagrams always have been the magician’s shape of choice.

At first I’d been anxious when Asra went to work, but very quickly I learnt to love all the mysteries he set out for me. I worked at them all day, pleased to show him my progress when he came home in the evening. I’ve retained a love of riddles and tests of wit ever since. But for the first time since my return, I’m not looking forward to untangling the Gordian Knot that represents Julian’s crippling self-loathing. How can I move forward when there’s so much at stake? How can I move forward when there is everything to lose? When-

The truth is a revelation that knocks the air from my lungs: fear and self-deception are another form of illusion. If I turn timid and don’t even try, no matter how clumsily, I’m as guilty of wallowing in my fate as Julian is. I feel the cool gaze of the Moon in my mind; self-knowledge guards against being taken in by the guiles and illusions of others, this is her first lesson.

“Julian?”

He doesn’t turn towards me, still stares moodily at the fire, but his flight-feathers twitch so I know he heard me.

“Julian… We really need to talk.”

His brows furrow. “I think that must be the worst phrase a person can utter in any language…”

I raise an eyebrow thinking of phrases like ‘ _I don’t care anymore’_ , _‘I don’t love you’_ and _‘they’re dead’_ which surely must rate higher on the list, but I keep it to myself because I see his point. As a sentence it bodes very ill. I take a breath. “You’ve been quiet – silent in fact – for three days now.”

“It’s either shout or stay silent,” he says in a low, brackish voice quite unlike his usual timbre. “I tried shouting and it didn’t change anything and I didn’t even feel vindicated. If anything, I felt _worse_.”

I nod. For all his anger, the colour suffusing his aura had been the Stygian blue of despair. “I understand that. I knew that spell would hurt you and infuriate you once you found out, and I’m sorry for that… But I don’t regret my actions.”

He offers a bitter chuckle. “Not much of an apology.”

“No,” I agree firmly, “it’s not. You said I had no right to break your chains; but by the same token what gave you the right to bargain away your soul for my safety?”

“I was protecting you!”

I sigh. “It seems neither of us are very good at apologies. Julian… if I had inflicted scrapes and bruises upon you in the cause of saving your life, I would lament the hurt but I wouldn’t for a moment think I should have instead left you to die.”

“I wasn’t dying,” he bites back, the last word snarling around his fangs.

“You were. You still are.”

His head snaps to stare at me, his maelstrom eyes saucer-wide, his lips twisted in shock and wishing to curl down into disbelief.

“You hid yourself away here, thinking this was all you deserved. No company, no kindness, no family, no friends or lovers. Just endless tankards of misery…”

“What should I have done?” He spreads his arms and wings wide. “Who would welcome me like _this_?”

“I did,” I counter.

He shakes his head. “I still don’t know why.”

“Because you’re Julian Devorak, and I lov-”

“I’m monstrous! I’m a walking abomination!”

“So this is all you deserve? A - a quarantined existence as if you might contaminate those you come into contact with? A purgatory of grey days stained with the red of your guilt and your blood? That’s dying, Julian. Not as fast as the noose or the plague, but it will get you there none the less.”

The storm of his eyes has turned glassy. _“We who were living are now dying. With a little patience,”_ he quips sardonically, refusing to blink until he’s certain his eyes won’t betray him by shedding tears.

“Don’t quote dead poets to me!” T’Selio was a popular Nevivon scribe from antiquity. “And don’t look so surprised; in my case coming back from the dead gave me a lot of leisure to read – once I’d re-learnt how to, of course.” I can’t keep the snap from my voice nor the slight satisfaction I feel as Julian visibly flinches. “I didn’t have your gift of immediacy; it took me two and a half years to learn to be myself again.”

His head bows and his eyes close, spilling salt across the angles of his cheeks. “I’m so sorry…”

“I don’t want you to be sorry! Julian, nine hells, I was your assistant..."

"Seven hells," he corrects absently.

"I'm starting to think nine doesn't even begin to cover it," I snarl. "We both came into contact with scores of infected people every day! We didn’t know how the plague spread, didn’t know how to stop it any more than any other churgeon, leechmeister, doctor or herbalist did! We did our best, trying to help, searching for a cure. Were our masks and gloves that much protection in the end, when the disease could have festered in the very water we drank? Did I fail to wash my hands when I should? Was I cut – the tiniest scratch – when scrubbing down the tables one night? Did a stranger cough on me when I walked home? I don’t know! I don’t know what happened Julian – I don’t remember and neither do you. You feel this much freely admitted guilt about supposedly abandoning me to my fate, but what could you actually have done? By that point you were at the palace, using Lucio's resources to find a cure. There were hundreds dying every day; all the infected at the clinic had been taken to the Lazaret. What on earth could you have done for me?"

"I could have been there!"

"And wrung your hands as I coughed my last and was consigned to the ovens? We couldn't track the pathogen, couldn't guard against it... We were just trying our best. My death was _not_ your fault. Firmament help me, can’t you see your self-reproach is crippling you?”

In the warmth of the firelight and against the dark of his feathers, his skin blanches a sickly ash-white, his lips looking almost mauve. “Lucio… and Valdemar… I – I didn’t catch the plague. …I was given it. A few weeks after you… after you died.”

I feel my jaw open in slow amazement even as I fight not to recoil in horror. “What?” the word is small and dry, falling from my mouth like a stone.

“Lucio needed his cure. I was the latest in a long line of doctors - sixty-eight I believe - who had failed to produce results. So the Count gave Valdemar carte-blanche to make me a test subject instead. They… they strapped me down to the operating table, forced my mouth open, and dropped one of the red beetles down my throat.” His voice is oddly blank, stripped of emotion. “I could feel the barbs of its legs, the flex of its wing casings all the way down...” An odd bark of laughter. “Or at least I thought I could.”

I step towards him, my arms reaching to gather him close and comfort him; once again, my carefully thought out argument has been pushed off the table and smashed to fragments by the ills of Julian’s past and all I want to do is hold him close and promise – however futilely – that I will protect him. I’m three steps closer to him and the hearth when he stands abruptly and his wings raise high and fast, tipping back the chair he’d perched on and causing a buff of wind to blow out half the candles in the tavern.

“It - it - that doesn’t matter. I failed you. I failed the people of Vesuvia. I _failed_. Even when I came back and tried to make reparations for my crimes, I failed…”

“Crimes?” I echo. “What crimes? Dear gods and little fishes, what are you atoning _for_?”

His brows cant slightly and he blinks, perplexed. “Did… did you say ‘dear gods and little fishes?’”

“What of it?”

“I… I’ve travelled a fair bit. It’s not Vesuvian or Nevivon, nor from the South or the Western Steppes as far as I know. But you said it so easily in exasperation. I should think it’s a phrase from your homeland.”

I feel the cold light of the Moon’s gaze upon me. “ _You know he’s right,”_ she whispers.

I nod stiffly. “Yes… I think you’re right.”

He nods in return, but his eyes are empty and he isn’t looking at anything. His wings itch to lift higher and curl about him, shielding him from a world that forces his feelings to forever wield a whip against his soul.

“Interesting though that may be,” I say gently, “that is _not_ the relevant topic of discussion.”

His lips quirk bitterly at the edges. “Knew you’d say that.” All of a sudden his shoulders and wings slump, feathers trailing on the floor in defeat. “Go on then. Putting it off was twisting the knife rather. Speak. Say what you were always going to say.”

I have no notion of how every conversation with Julian seems to reach this same impasse. I frown, my eyebrows knifed down in worry, my mouth pinched with concern. “What do you think I have to say?”

A wild bark of laughter before talons and wings seek to cover his mouth, stifling the toxic mirth. “Thought you at least possessed the courage of your conviction,” he mutters spitefully. “I have finally plumbed the depths of the fearless witch’s valour after all! Very well, I’ll be the gentleman and say it for you if your sensibilities forestall you.” There is a harsh glint in his eyes like knapped flint; brittle but oh so sharp. “You journeyed here through some misguided sentiment, or through your inability to let wounded things burrow away to die alone... You always were _tender hearted.”_ The last phrase comes out like an insult. “Once you’d found me, pity and honour demanded you save me no matter the cost to your soul. Or _mine_ ,” he adds in a voice like ash. “Job done, you realise I’m the monstrous wreck I’ve always been; so now it’s time for words, for the talk wherein you explain you did your best but could never really fix my failings – and why should you be accountable for them? I was a fool to believe in strength and magic and-”

I have a pain in the pit of my stomach so severe I fear I might vomit; I know the end of that sentence and I cannot bear to hear it. _‘I was a fool to believe in strength and magic and YOU’._ I violently quash my nausea and snap, “JULIAN!” The force of his name, magic-imbued, is enough to stall him. “How did you get to be so - so _brilliant_ and such an idiot at the same time?” I hold up a finger in warning, a faint nimbus of power sheening it blue-white. “So help me I will kick your arse if you utter a bloody _word_ before I’m done!”

A dour silence save for the low crackling of the fire greets that statement.

I huff out a breath. I need to find the right thread to pull, the right tale to tell, the right knife to sever the knot. “You… you often call Mazelinka and Portia ‘dear’. It’s so off-hand and yet your voice is so warm when you say it. Even Pepi, even a cat may be dear to you. Don't you understand, I knew you weren’t the man I’d been told about; knew you didn’t belong on wanted posters. And somewhere between you pulling me out of the reservoir, ruining your shirt and tunic for me, and tucking Assassin’s Sweetheart behind my ear…” I shouldn’t, but I grin at his expression. “That’s its folk name, by the by. It’s used in some spells as a flower, not a distilled poison, in case you wondered.” I shake my head, frowning all the while. “You break into my shop, save me from vampire eels, tell me you’re a monster, then give me the means to kill you all in the space of one bloody day! Seven hells Julian – what is anyone meant to do with that?!”

He looks away and his wings seek to cloak him. “Leave well enough alone.”

“Not my nature, sorry,” I say facetiously.

“It should be.”

I pause. “If Lucio’s nature wasn’t petty and afraid… If Asra’s nature wasn’t to move heaven and earth… if your nature wasn’t to suffer for others… if my nature wasn’t…” A sharp pain lances through my head, bone deep, brain deep, as the Arcana flutter their infinite power within the very small confines of my skull. “If my… nature…” I scuff my left hand underneath my nose and manage not to look at the warm discharge I can feel coating my thumb and instead casually smudge it on the back of my shift. I don't know whether I should hope it's blood red or pearl-white. “Never mind my nature – my nature’s ‘contrary’ and ‘stab the Devil in the face!’” This is exhausting – I can’t – I – I can’t do this on my own… I clutch at my head, the power of the Arcana threatening to overcome me. Apparently gaining the patronage of a new card is not without its drawbacks.

There is a buffet of wind so powerful it almost knocks me off my feet. In the background I think I hear the shattering of bottles and the splintering of furniture. I thought I had only blinked, but when I open my eyes Julian has me clasped in his arms, his head bowed over me, rocking back and forth on the elongated talons of his feet. I can hear his heartbeat, a high ratta-tat-tat in double-time. The staccato rhythm is the first thing I’m aware of. Secondly I’m aware of warm droplets of water on my face – which is odd, because I don’t remember shedding tears. Thirdly are words being muttered low and heartfelt with desperation. I can’t make them out at first, they’re a static-y scribble of sound, impossible to decipher. I stay quiescent until at long last the noise unpicks itself.

“…I won’t let you - I can’t - I don’t care how terrible that makes me… You can't keep doing this. You claim you're saving me but all I can see is you killing yourself. Please, Lana… Oh gods, please… My darling, wake up… No, no – I have no right to that endearment – I know – I’ll give it up, I will, whatever it takes – please? Please… oh gods…”

"What do you think?" a silvery voice enquires. "Is he correct? Are you destroying yourself? Or are you mining for answers?"

 _I suppose I best hope they're not one and the same thing,_ I think and am rewarded with a laugh.

"I knew I liked you," the Moon whispers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T'Selio is of course T S Eliot and those lines are from The Wasteland.
> 
> Sorry for the short chapter, I had a better idea for how the story should go from here and so will have to re-work the chapters I was half-way through writing... Hopefully you'll appreciate all the tarot and Arcana magic/angst I've got lined up!


	10. Chapter 10

The Moon looks at me: here she’s a ghost-grey wolf as large as the sky. Wolves aren’t in the habit of raising one eyebrow, but the expectant, questioning tilt of her muzzle has the same effect. “What answers do you seek?”

“Not answers for myself, well, not directly. Answers for Julian. In the past when I’ve broken the Devil’s deals, those who forged them have returned to how they were before.”

A narrow look. “You miss your beau’s pretty skin?”

“No! His feathers are…” I stop, unwilling to tell my new patron exactly what I think of Julian’s feathers and how I shiver when I imagine the silk of them against me. “Never mind his feathers. He thinks he’s a monster; he’s punishing himself and I don’t even know what for – I’m not sure he knows any more either. It’s just… self-hate as a habit. I love him, but that makes for a very hard road if he cannot love or forgive himself.” I shrug awkwardly. “I’ll love him anyway… But I know he could be happy – truly happy in himself, not only when I smile at him.”

“Ah. You see his character more clearly than he does? Beware of arrogance, little one…” She smiles as she says it, a warning, but a teasing one.

I snort. “I’m a witch under the patronage of the Moon. If I’m not clear-sighted in these matters then you’ve chosen very poorly…”

She laughs, a beautifully rich and quiet sound that seems to ripple across the sky. “Very well; in the name of self-knowledge and truth I shall aid you.”

I realise with a lurch that she’s waiting for me to articulate some sort of plan; I feel like a child caught daydreaming by their tutor and scrabble for useful thoughts. After a moment of panic the first whisper of an idea comes to me. “Julian has made deals with the Hanged Man in the past…” I remember Asra’s explanation of the card: ‘The Hanged Man relinquishes control, sacrificing himself to the judgment of the World,’ which again and again seems to sum up what Julian has done. “I think one cannot help but be influenced by the Arcana, whether we know it or not. We all have our cards, our fates… But,” I offer hesitantly, “fate snarls when we cleave to an Arcana we should move on from.” I risk looking at the Moon, her muzzle’s starting to split into a grin, revealing the ivory of her fangs. I belatedly hope I’m not being too disrespectful. “Nothing is static, no matter what the Devil may claim. Clinging to something we ought outgrow…”

“And what Arcana would you suggest for your lost little raven?”

I shake my head. “No – that’s his choice. He may always be beneath the Hanged Man’s aegis – or not – that’s not for me to say. I just wish to show him he doesn’t need to stay locked in the past, that he is worthy and brilliant and brave and could do almost anything he put his mind to.”

“He must run the gauntlet then.” Her voice is low and grave.

The Arcana flicker and array themselves behind my eyes in numerical order. The Hanged Man is first. Then Death. Temperance. The Devil. The Tower. The Star, and finally the cool serenity of the Moon. I wince; for harsh truths and hard-learned lessons that’s possibly the worst hand in the deck. “It will hurt, won’t it?” I ask, although there’s very little sound of query in my voice.

“The shattering of illusions always does,” she agrees.

I close my eyes. Often forgiveness is easier to obtain than permission, but that attitude hadn’t served me very well the last time I employed it… No, this was the Moon’s way: faith and intuition coaxed her light into being in the darkest of nights. “What must I do?”

“I shall lend you a mirage, and him a dream. You will take the guise of each Arcana in turn and work to teach him their strengths and weaknesses.”

I nod feeling numb. _Sometimes, the best strategy is a swift retreat. Take time to regroup and re-examine your options._ That’s the Hanged Man’s message, but it’s one I can’t listen to, and I can’t allow Julian to do so any more either.

"Let us begin; you and he have a hard journey ahead of you..."


	11. Chapter 11

The light is bright and Julian turns away from it, needing a moment. Hadn’t it been dim before? Perhaps he’s thinking of his cell - that must be it – for now the daylight is in full force, illuminating the stones and pillars of the marketplace. Two of the palace guards are holding him by each shoulder as Nadia, willowy and regal as ever, gives him a long look down her nose.

“Such a pity,” she murmurs. “My husband thought you capable of great things. He and I disagreed in almost every particular, but for once I was inclined to believe him.” She clasps his hands in what seems like solidarity before fettering them in irons herself. “Where did you go wrong?” she asks wonderingly, sounding like a mother scolding a child.

“What? I – Nadia – Countess!”

There’s a laugh; light, carefree and lyrical. “Come now, Ilya,” Asra says, reaching forward to cup his hand against Julian’s cheek. “Don’t act so surprised. Where else were you destined to end, but on a length of hemp?”

Julian stares back at him, eyes wide, unable to tell if he’s more shocked by Asra’s indifference or by his palm against his skin.

“We both knew you were a bad lot…” Asra’s laugh follows him as the guards lead him away.

“Would have thought at least if you were to meet your end it would be at the Colosseum,” a gruff voice at his ear mutters, gripping his arm a little tighter.

He recognizes that voice; what’s more the guard doesn’t appear to be as tall or as burly as they were a moment ago. He turns his head sharply. “Mazelinka?!”

The old pirate shakes her head at him sadly. “Where did you go wrong, boy? All these grand gestures and where does it get you? Hanged in the marketplace.” She sighs. “Had you been more of a man at least you would have been hanged in the Colosseum.”

He looks at her oddly for that. The voice was Mazelinka’s tones, not to mention every aspect of her appearance. But she had never - would never – say anything like that. She would hit him with a ladle and smuggle him away on the next ship bound for the Western Marches before she ever helped walk him to the scaffold, berating him all the while. He feels a dull, leaden ache in his heart and the beginning throb of a headache at his temples. “Babushka,” he tries, “You know I’d never do anything to…” There is a loud snort to the other side of him. The guard to his right is seeming significantly shorter and curvier that he remembered them. “Er…”

An expressive roll of two large and dark-lashed blue eyes. “Oh, save it, Ilyushka. You always say you’re _soooo_ sorry,” Pasha complains, because somehow against all reason it is Pasha. “Oh I just had to, oh I had no choice, oh what would you have done… I wouldn’t know,” she adds snidely. “I never would have been stupid enough to get into so much trouble in the first place." She twists his wrist so the back of his hand can be seen with its stark and recriminating murderer's brand. "Did you never for once in your life think that instead of being sorry all the time you might have thought for a moment and chosen better?”

He reels back, feeling the heat of her anger as if it’s a physical thing.

Mazelinka grabs hold of his shackles and yanks him forward. “Too late now boyo,” she says almost cheerfully as she drags him up the scaffold.

“Wait – I – no, I’ve done this – it didn’t happen like this – I…”

There are two figures on the scaffold platform. One is tall and dark-feathered, the executioner’s hood doing little to disguise who they really are.

The other is a young woman with bruise-blue eyes and wild, mist-grey hair.

The raven-man walks him to the trapdoor and then turns to address the crowd. “In bleak times, sacrifices are sacrosanct. But all must be willing.”

 _This – this isn’t how it happened,_ Julian thinks desperately. _Gods, it was horrible enough the first time, please – please don’t make me do this again…_

The raven-man holds his talons up in a stylized gesture that’s obviously meaningful, because, “The choice has been made,” is murmured reverently back in response by every member of the crowd.

“This isn’t what happened! I – I didn’t – I didn’t – you don’t understand... What did I do? I didn't do anything!” Tendrils of panic have squirmed up through his boots somehow and infected his blood, tainting everything with a nightmare-bright infusion of fear.

“The choice has been made,” the raven-man intones solemnly in agreement.

“No – what choice?!” He twists back and forth trying to ask someone – anyone - but somehow he ends up pushed to his knees on the trapdoor. The young woman with wild hair finishes tying the noose and then stands before him, offering it to him as if it’s a circlet of flowers. “The choice is yours,” she says.

“The choice is mine,” Julian agrees, not understanding in the least and leaning forward, bowing his head and allowing the noose to be tightened around his neck.

His thoughts are jumbled in confusion; he’s trying to remember the feeling of fingertips against his skin, the feeling of nails carding through feathers, but he doesn’t know why these sensations should be significant. And then the trap door opens and there is a disorientating feeling of weightlessness followed by oblivion that arrives with a sudden, visceral snap.

There’s darkness; not a true darkness, more a shifting changeable arrangement of shadows. He doesn’t trust it. He thinks for a moment he sees Lana, but when he tries to lift a hand to catch her, his wrists won’t move and there is the dull clank of chains.

“Awake so soon? I suppose that will make this more interesting. Do you think you’ll be up to giving notes?”

Julian’s mouth is dry and he tries to turn and sit, to fetch the nearest cup of water, but he is shackled to a table. It takes another second or two of futile fight to truly understand it. “I- I don’t… why am I… what’s going on?”

Valdemar smiles down at him. “So many questions! That’s always been your forte, 069, but you never were precise enough…”

“I – what…?” Again Julian pulls against the leather straps and the iron cuffs that secure him to the table. “Let me up!”

Valdemar’s green-tinged visage crinkles into a wide smile. “I can’t do that,” they say, aiming for remorse but falling short because their interest in science – in death – has always been too keen. “We’ve been given an opportunity, you and I…” They trail one gloved hand against Julian’s jaw and down to the delicate pulse of his neck, fingertips pressing and lingering there for a moment too long until they turn abruptly and pick up a jar from the trolley of doctor’s instruments beside them. They pull up their mask over their mouth before unscrewing the lid and retrieving something scarlet and squirming from the depths of the container with a pair of forceps. Their mask scrunches up at each corner in what must be a scythe-sharp grin. “Open wide!” They pinch Julian’s nose closed until he gasps a breath and the plague beetle is thrust down his throat, the forceps bruising his teeth and mangling the scream that tries to escape his throat.

Things fragment after that.

His head throbs, his blood burns and his right eye won’t stop weeping. Thoughts skitter sideways through his mind, twisting like eels whenever he tries to grab hold of them. After a time, he no longer bothers; it doesn’t seem worth the effort. He surrenders to the darkness with a rasping, weary sigh and waits for the pain to stop. His lungs start to itch and spasm. He coughs, his lips stained with something warm and brackish.

He has little notion of time so doesn’t know how long it takes; but at length a faint shape seems to gather itself out of the darkness. Its tattered robes are the deep blue-grey of a bruise and its face is long and pale. It regards Julian solemnly with the patience of eternity.

Julian tries to raise his head to speak, but his throat is dry and waves of dizziness force him quiescent once more. The skull looks at him and it must be his fevered imagination, but he would swear he sees regret in the empty sockets of its eyes or perhaps a sprig of silver hair spilling from the confines of its hood.

It can’t smile, not really, but its aspect is gentle. “Change is inevitable,” it whispers in a voice so familiar and so lost Julian aches for it.

There is a name on the tip of his tongue – the tip of his memory – but his mind feels like lead and the longed-for sound will not come. He closes his eyes.

When he opens them again, once more everything is too loud and too bright, so much so that he turns his head away, dizzy. Is this another fever dream he must weather?

There’s a laugh, quiet, intimate, and a touch at his elbow that is equally so. “Julian?”

He forces his eyes to focus and then blinks foolishly at the person standing before him. “Lana…?” She’d come to work for him once the plague took hold, having some notion that perhaps science and magic could combine or at least assist one another in finding a cure. Julian had only seen her as Asra’s charge, his puppet, his apprentice. He should never have accepted her as an assistant. He only did so out of – spite? Desperation? He doesn’t remember. But he does know she worked hard at any chore she was put to, whether cleaning, taking notes, sitting with the dying, or giving news to the families after their loved one had passed; she was tirelessly diligent in her duties. That made it all the worse when she – she… Didn’t she die?

He scowls helplessly at the sparkling finery of candelabras and decoration the ballroom is so liberally decked in, every surface seeming to scintillate with light. He tries to rub at his eyes and his fingers encounter a feathered mask.

“Julian? Or would you prefer Ilya?”

He doesn’t know why he mistook the person in front of him for Lana. This young woman is in a dress of artfully cut gossamer silk and chiffon, the fabric bright at the edges and fading towards darkness in the middle. Over the bodice of the dress and crowning her shoulders is something between a corset and a cape in silver filigree crafted to look like wings. Her hair is pale and has been powdered milk-white and coiled up around her head like a nest of snakes, pinned in place with sundry silvery adornments. She has an a-symmetrical mask that covers one eye, part of her cheek and forehead and lies against one side of her nose: the edge of the mask rises up into two pale grey feathered wings.

Despite her finery and the excitement buzzing and bubbling around them she seems calm. She reaches a tentative hand to his arm again. “Would you care to dance? You’ve threatened me with it a few times now…”

“Dance?” he echoes.

“I favour a waltz myself…”

He stares at her, dumbfounded. “A waltz?”

“Or would you rather a jig, kicking over tankards at the Rowdy Raven?” she teases and laughs when he doesn’t know what to say. She smiles warmly at him. “Oh! I know this piece! Shall you lead, or shall I?” And without waiting for a reply she takes him by the hand, guiding him onto the dancefloor.

Initially Julian’s nerves provide him with two left feet, but the music is beguiling – the tune hauntingly familiar – and it doesn’t take long before he’s melted into it and is able to glide across the floor, his moves perfectly in time with hers. The woman leads him in simple steps; nothing flashy or technically demanding, but always graceful and fitting the mood of the music. She never once looks at her feet or at the other guests, looks at nothing but his eyes framed by the dark feathers of his mask. He can feel his cheeks and the tips of his ears burn and the knowledge almost causes him to stumble had she not swept him onwards in time. “You’re rather good at this, I must say.”

She smiles serenely. “That’s because I know the secret.”

His lips quirk up in turn. “Do you? And might you be persuaded to impart this hidden knowledge?” He expects her to turn coquettish and demand some forfeit of him in payment, but she answers straight away.

“The secret is, you must let the music weave a path for you and simply don’t worry about it. Oh, and never veer too far to the left nor to the right.”

“That - that’s the secret?”

“Oh yes! Doesn’t sound like much, but you’d be amazed how few people know it.”

He laughs at that, marveling how she can take such pleasure in a simple task executed with poise and grace, never worrying that she might trip or stumble into one of the other masquerade revelers, trusting the music and her feet to guide her.

“You’re thinking too much again, Julian,” she chides him.

He means to apologize or perhaps make some clever quip, but the colours of the ballroom are running together, streaking and swirling and glowing so brightly they pulse towards agony. “Wait,” he gasps, but she’s no longer in his arms, no longer there at all and his hands are being wrenched behind his back, pinned against the crook of his spine. His vision bleeds crimson – or the world does – until a red mist suffuses everything.


	12. Chapter 12

“Tsk, tsk, _tsk,”_ offers an unwelcome, superior, and all too familiar voice. “I knew it wouldn’t be long before I saw you again. It has never ceased to amaze me, how mortals who profess to fight the hardest against fate always end up enslaved to it over and over again…”

The red mist solidifies into a doorway that glows dully at the edges like a wound in reality. There's the approaching sound of distorted footsteps. One black hoof steps through followed by a second and there after two white shaggy-haired legs: here the Devil stands in all his malignant glory.

Julian feels bile burn at the back of his throat and struggles to swallow it down along with his fear. Chains snake lazily across the ground, circling him, binding his feet, pulling taught against the ones already looped tightly around his arms. He grunts in discomfort and glares at the Devil. “You can’t bind me unless I make a deal. Even someone like you has rules they must obey.”

“Mm, yes, I admit, I was once limited by such petty bureaucracy. But _that_ my dear doctor, was before you so generously aided me in merging the Infinite Realms into one cauldron of chaos. I can’t imagine how it’s escaped your may-fly attention, but there are no rules anymore." His mouth does something unpleasant, stretching too sharp and too wide. "I may do as I please.”

Julian's already grimacing as he growls, “If you have everything you wanted, then what the hells do you want with me?"

“What indeed?" A dry, disconcerting chuckle. "The truth is I find you amusing...”

Julian shakes his head in defiance, his hair falling in front of his eyes. The deep auburn shade of it surprises him and he has no idea why. “Doesn’t matter what you do to me. Lana will find me. And it doesn't matter how long it takes: she’ll hunt you down, find wherever you're skulking, storm in and stab that dagger of hers through your coal... black... _heart.”_ Those last three words are ground out with relish. 

The Devil’s eyes light in amusement and his smile cants up at one side. “Will she now? Your faith in her is deeply touching..." He grins like a bastard. "If misplaced.”

Once again the air condenses, burning and bleeding into a portal. Out steps a slender figure, lithe on delicate silver-tipped hooves. She’s clothed in Tyrian purple, far gaudier than her usual mode of dress, and her wrists jangle discordantly with heavy silver bracelets. Her dark-clawed fingers are armoured in jewelled rings. Her hair spills abundantly around her shoulders in ashen-white waves from which protrude two ebon horns that rise up towards her crown before spiralling down and around her ears. The sclera of her eyes are inky, and strange markings like tears mar her cheeks.

“L-lana,” he croaks, her name feeling like ash in his mouth and burning coals down every inch of his throat.

She smiles, a small diamond-bright expression that's as cold as it is hard. “Greetings _Ilya,”_ she says maliciously, that single word brimful of a world’s worth of contempt.

“Lana please,” he begs franticly, “take my hand – take my magic – together we’re strong enough to…” His words falter and die under the onslaught of her laughter.

“You never were very bright, were you? Bird-brained Ilyushka, always six steps behind everyone else and a different name for every failure. No wonder you never succeeded at anything! I don’t want to hold your hand and I have no need of your pitiful magic – I already have all the power I desire – which is far more than your mortal mind could comprehend... _Honestly,”_ she turns and scolds the Devil with sharp annoyance, “I don’t think much of your toys. Dear gods, how sadly prosaic! Why do you keep so many of them around?”

The Devil waves his hand with an unconcerned shrug and a small smirk. “We all have our little peccadilloes, my dear.”

If anything the Devil's consort looks bored and infinitely annoyed with her choice of partner which doesn't bode well for anyone else.

Julian strains towards her taking his chance, his eyes wide and desperate. "Snap out of it - wake up! This isn't you, Lana, I know it's not..."

She steps closer to him with viper-ish curiosity. “Oh?" she asks with a smile that twists into something icy. "Hmm... On the contrary, I have never been more myself.” She circles him, her claws tracing idly down his arms, across his chest and up around his throat.

“Lana, please,” he whispers. “Please? Lana..." Then a confession he must voice no matter the cost: "I love you...”

The ice-blue of her irises spark in feral glee. _“Do_ you? Perhaps I was overhasty in my assessment; you might be entertaining after all...” She continues to stalk, her claws touching him wherever and however she pleases as if seeking to find a flaw in a suit of armour. Her claws rest between his neck and shoulders, tapping against his collarbone. “How much do you love me?” she demands.

He swallows. “With all my heart,” he says, the frank admission holding an edge of misery as he stares at the corruption of her eyes and the marks tracing her cheeks.

She steps close, her face leaning towards his, her chalybeous gaze coolly searching, the tips of her right hand claws resting against his chest. _“All_ of your heart?” she muses, her claws pressing through the fine flax of his shirt to cut the skin beneath.

Julian’s breath stutters in pain. “Yes,” he says, doggedly. “With all of my heart, my darling.” The claws dig deeper, through skin into muscle and he can’t help but gasp as torment blooms like a bloody rose beneath his shirt, staining skin and linen red.

She giggles. _“Darling?"_

"Y-yes," he manages, tears in his eyes as the claws push deeper, and deeper still, and blood spills in earnest.

Her head tips to the side in something like amusement. "Tell me: am I your true darling?"

The pain is making it hard to concentrate. "Yes..."

"Your dearest?" she presses.

"Y-yes..."

"I have your heart?" she asks in deceptively longing tones.

The cant of her head and lilt of her voice are nothing like Lana, the tips of her left-hand claws gentling across his cheekbones in either seduction or threat, his battered psyche can't tell. All he knows is that this version of Lana is false to the core, but he can save her - and he must - and he _will_.He has to believe that otherwise he doesn't know what he has left. He realises he hasn't given an answer as the claws lodged in his chest leisurely push further in. He no longer knows what he wants to say to things that may be illusion or truth. He's suddenly so very, very tired... He tilts and she catches him, her left hand cradling him by the shoulders before he falls. He's in her arms... He struggles to focus. "L-lana...?"

"Mm..." she agrees with a smirk that is neither kind nor reassuring in the least. "I have you," she promises.

For a moment there are no gaudy robes, no horns, no hooves, just Lana with her arms wrapped around him offering her hand and with it all the strength and trust he ever wanted... He can't feel the chains any more: he eagerly reaches, trembling, to grasp her hand and flinches in shock when he closes his fingers around silver-clad claws. The chains re-materialise, yanking his arms behind his back, snaking around his shoulders and neck from above.

The Devil laughs, a bleating, mocking echo that takes a long time to fade from the sanctuary of his citadel. "Oh my dear, had I known how popular you were I would have recruited you earlier!"

The demon Lana gives a poisonous smile to the world in general, her attention never wavering from Julian. "You said I had your heart," she murmurs.

His eyelids stutter closed and it takes a conscious effort to open them again. "A- a- al...always," he rasps eventually.

She pets and fauns against him for a minute, claws brushing wantonly against him.

Pain offers sudden and unasked for clarity. _"Don't,"_ he begs, blinking and looking away. "You - you're not Lana. Leave me alone." He tries to curl deeper into his chains so he might be untouchable, salt tears knifing down the angles of his cheeks, all remaining courage razed to the ground.

She pouts. "You said I had your heart..." She waits for a reply but Julian is silent, his rebellion against unconsciousness failing like every other endeavour in his life. She shrugs, losing interest in her own game. "Well then. It only seems fair,” she whispers close to his ear, _“that I take it.”_

Julian screams as her claws hungrily punch past his splintering ribs and wrench out his still-beating heart. The world turns to agony, thick and red as vitae, and smelling sweetly of decay as his legs give out beneath the weight of his chains and his eyes roll back, sightless and dull.

For a time it is dark, and then without warning a door is opened, candlelight spilling across the boards and casting forth the shadows of two figures who huddle in the entranceway.

“I don’t know what to do – he won’t shake out of it.” That voice is young, female, tearful and distraught. “He just sobs. When I tried to move her, he…” She shudders at the memory. “He started keening like a banshee.”

“Hmph. Where’s himself with the white hair? The magician...” That voice is far older and grumpier. It’s the voice of someone who has weathered a lot in their life and can keep a cool head in a crisis.

“Asra? He’s off on one of his wanderlust journeys. At least that’s what… what Lana told me yesterday.” The voice wobbles and stumbles over the name.

“Best have this ship-shape and squared away before he returns; there’s enough ill blood between those two as it is.” A long sigh and another breath that did its best to prepare the owner for the tribulations to come. “You carry the candle; let’s see what we’re up against…”

The flickering gold of illumination enters the room with the two figures causing Julian to wake from his fugue. He feels exhausted and hollowed out, but by what he can’t recall. His chest aches as if he’s run across the expanse of the Steppes and back, his breath coming in odd little gasps. His eyes are wet and his spine and neck curved over something he holds onto tight enough to whiten his knuckles and make the ends of his fingers numb. He’s sitting on the floor, uncomfortably pressed up against some sort of cupboard or counter. He can smell something that’s like brine and iron skillets. He raises his head blearily as the candle is brought closer, his pupils cringing away from the light.

Mazelinka’s lined and familiar face, her hair wrapped beneath one of her brightly patterned shawls, moves into the halo of candlelight. She looks at him regretfully, something soft in the depths of her dark eyes. “Oh Ilya, my poor boy…”

“I was too late,” Julian utters, his voice ravaged. _Too late?_ A beleaguered bit of his brain wonders. _Too late for what?_

“I know, I know that,” Mazelinka soothes, reaching out and squeezing his shoulder. “But your babushka’s here now. Let me help... Pasha’s here too. You don’t have to face this alone…”

“I didn’t have my mark,” he tells her, panic rising, his words running into one another, “I used it all up when they hanged me – I…”

“Hush boy, we know.”

He shakes his head and can feel fresh tears adorn his cheeks. “If I’d had my mark I could have taken it – I could have taken it away! But I couldn’t – I couldn’t do anything!” He’s almost gabbling now, hysteria pulling the words from him. “I couldn’t save her…”

_Couldn't... couldn’t save who?_

“I know, Ilya, come now…” Mazelinka’s capable and calloused hands are pulling to unlock his arms from around the burden they cling to, as beside her Pasha cries quietly and tries to hold the candlestick steady, wiping her tears on her apron.

With nightmare slowness, Julian finds his gaze being dragged down to the thing locked so tightly to his chest.

For an instant, he’s cradling the head of a dying stag with blazing antlers who’s huffing out labored breaths as scarlet beetles run over the rich dun of its pelt. And then the candle catches in an errant draft and he sees who it really is.

Her blue eyes hold the lifeless glaze of porcelain. Her hair is in disarray, one or more of the pins having fallen out. Her skin is the colour of tallow and chill to the touch, her pale lips parted in the smallest ‘o’ of disbelief. The soft lilac of her shirt and the deep grey of her jerkin are ruined, the blood showing red one moment and black the next as the candle flame casts its fickle light across the scene.

“No - no no no no _no_ – Lana, Lana…” Words continue to fall meaninglessly from his mouth, melding together in grief, as if there is a particular word, a magic word, that might end this horror. As if by screaming his anguish at the universe loudly enough it will force it to capitulate to his will and return her to life.

“Boy, you must let go now…”

“Ilya, _please_ …”

It doesn’t matter what they say, nothing matters. He remembers the shipwreck that he and Pasha survived as children. Remembers the cold relentless grip of the ocean as every wave strove to push them down. Remembers the burn of salt in his eyes, nose and lungs until it seemed that was all there was: no land, no sky, no night no day, just the crushing embrace of the sea. Despair rolls over him and drags him down for an eternity, forcing the air from his lungs and the thoughts from his head.

Light presses against his eyelids: he opens them to behold the stag, its antlers burning with ethereal brass-bright flames in the darkness. It gazes at him, its dark eyes calm, the pestilence of beetles swarming over its flank too small a matter to even acknowledge this time. “False reason and self-sabotaging thoughts are of no use to you,” it counsels. “Discard them.”

Then the stag is gone, and he’s whimpering and brokenly begging as Mazelinka pries Lana's corpse from his grasp.

There’s a lightning flash so hot and bright Julian can’t be sure it hasn't struck him asunder, and he can't bring himself to care if it has.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does anyone else imagine the Devil being voiced by either Tim Curry or Charles Dance? Or is that just me?
> 
> This chapter was a lot of fun and also hugely traumatic to write. All I can say is I hope you were traumatised too =P
> 
> Lana's eye was scribbled at 3am with one of those red/black/blue/green combo-biro pens.
> 
> The sketch of demon Lana is a more involved WIP I hope to complete and colour...


	13. Chapter 13

“The Moon did blaze as bright as day…” whispers a soft voice at the back of my mind in tones of shimmering lambency, the words calling me back to myself.

And just like one of Asra’s puzzle boxes I’d laboured hours to understand, I see the answer, illuminated by the full light of the Moon. The harshest cards are passed; only the Star and the Moon remain. I have transformed Julian’s chains and I’ve held his hand as we stood toe to hoof with the Devil. But despite that, we labour through one more feat; one last piece of impossible magic I must conjure into being if Julian is to be free.

My heart aches to struggle to wake and rise from the illusion of corpse or stag held in Julian’s arms as he laments, his voice hoarse with grief. Instead I turn and deliberately sink deeper. There’s a pulse that beats in terror and a voice that begs, lacerated to the core with sorrow, but I haven’t time for either. Down here, in the dark and the depths, this is when I can see the Moon’s light most clearly. She has many faces; as I’d told Julian, they’re not false, just different. If you fall for the Moon’s tricks instead of using her light to spy out the trickster? That’s on you.

Vertigo and black water crushes me and I think I haven’t been anywhere near as smart as I’d initially believed I had. (Or perhaps, I hope, I shall pay a heavier price this time round than Julian will?) Cold water fills my lungs: no matter how I struggle the Raven’s arms hold me and his tears drown me. And despite that, I know I'm still the fool; whatever price I pay, Julian will pay double.

“Where does our light come from?” the Moon asks calmly, watching my struggle with dispassion.

I get a delirious flash of a lighthouse as I gasp for air before the tides rise and I’m drowning again. I fight the waves to gasp my answer. “A… a Star?”

“What do Stars do?”

I’m choking and drowning and it’s cold and the Raven who I know is really Julian doesn’t realise he’s holding me securely underwater and I'm forced to struggle against the ocean and his grip both together…

“What to Stars do?”

“…shine?”

 _“What do Stars do?”_ she asks again with quiet insistence.

It takes all I have but I steal a desperate lungful of air and shout, “SHINE!”

The world changes; just like that the sea is gone. I thought I’d be on my hands and knees coughing up two quarts of ocean or tears or whatever it was I’d been drowning in. Instead when I open my eyes I seem to be beside an orrary in some sort of watchtower. No, not a tower, a lighthouse.

I’ve been here before, I know I have.

A woman with a cat’s face cups her paw to my cheek, with a gentle but playful tap. “You’re up – come along – there you go. Remember, I can’t give you long – make the most of it.” Then with a wink she fades into the jewels of constellations that pattern the velvet of the sky.

I feel something shift, although the trappings of the room and the night sky I can see through the window remain the same. I catch sight of my hands and realise they are delicate butter-and-marmalade coloured paws around which starry nimbuses play and flow like water. I’m wearing a cowl-necked dress quite out of character with the cut and colours I normally favour. “What on earth…?”

“Remember,” the Moon instructs me sternly.

Images of gallows, dungeons, ballrooms, spiral horns, and grief push brutally through my mind as my magic allows me to recall fragments of my time masquerading as the Arcana. _“Fucking hells,”_ I utter miserably and with much feeling.

“You asked to forge this path, and you’re almost done. Use your time wisely. Even an illusion holds truth for those who believe, but beware the mirage doesn’t shatter.” She places a pewter-grey paw – or is it a long-fingered hand? – on my shoulder. “You have pulled him through four of the seven hells. The Star is to be his resolution, my fortune your combined future – if you can manage to keep his soul together.”

I try and fail to prevent my expression from curdling into something combative.

A stretch and roll of her powerful shoulders. “Mortals are frail, and all magic comes with a price,” she reminds me calmly. I know she’s right and fight to bury my fear, my bubbling panic that in trying to use magic to win back Julian’s self esteem, I’ve instead warped his mind with nightmares and broken him entirely…

A shudder, a blinding lightning crack, an earthquake: the lighthouse shakes. The Moon has vanished and Julian is abruptly there on the floor in front of me, a velvet darkness against the golden light of the beacon, feathers disordered and talons outstretched, clawing against the floor, his face a perfect portrait of misery. “No Mazelinka! No, please, give her back – where - where is she?”

“I am here.” The voice of at least one Arcana speaks though me and burns my throat.

The shine of his eyes is dulled with anguish and self-recrimination. “Please! Please – where is she… Give her back…”

“She is here.”

“GIVE HER TO ME!” Julian howls, his wings beating in his distress.

I find myself tilting my head back to offer a nova-bright laugh. “And what would you do…”

“Everything!” His talons gouge deep grooves into the floor.

“…to get her back?”

_“Anything!”_

I lean forward, whiskers that aren’t mine bristling, lambent eyes widening and sun-coloured fur ready to spark. “Anything?” I purr and the voice comes as easy as air.

Julian’s eyes are stained red with tears; not the crimson of the plague, just the more everyday bruise-red of sleeplessness and misery. “ _I’ve bargained away my soul to become a monstrosity – d’you honestly think I’m scared to do it a second time?”_ he snarls, every word dripping desperation, willpower and fury.

My eyes widen not in shock or fear, quite the opposite. My eyes widen as a cat’s do when sighting their prey or an interesting point of the world: a dilation of the pupils that doesn’t wish to miss a thing. “Hmm. You’d give… _anything_?”

“Yes! _Gods help me I’ll give anything -_

“Your feathers?”

_\- anything you ask…”_

“Done.”

There is a sudden and terrible silence, like a thunderclap turned inside out, all its fury becoming a vacuum devoid of sound.

Julian looks wan and dazed. “I… W-what did I…?”

I close the distance between us and place my borrowed claws against the midnight citadel of his aura. At my touch, splinter-cracks slowly crawl over the self-imposed shell, and the cord wrapped snuggly around his soul burns brighter in solidarity. “When darkness falls,” I whisper, “I’ll fill your night with stars.”

His exhausted eyes narrow even as a doubtful spark of hope ignites. “Lana…? Is, is that you?”

The accumulated occult backlash is too much, or perhaps I’ve simply run out of time. Both Julian and I drop, slipping away from the lighthouse and consciousness, falling through the void.


	14. Chapter 14

_“What does a Star do?”_ a calm voice from the void prompts me.

I open my eyes but I’m in darkness; I seem to have slipped out of reality, no longer in the chaos of the realms but betwixt and between somehow. “I – I don’t know. We ran the gauntlet – I thought I was fixing things but somehow everything’s still broken, and I’m more tired every time…” A worryingly prescient thought flares to life at the forefront of my mind like a salamander, the white-hot pain of it causing me to wince. “How… how many times have Julian and I done this? Is this the first time I’ve tried to drag him through? It feels like the hundredth…”

“Does it matter?” the Moon asks.

“Not the first then,” I acknowledge, feeling past losses like a tally-score of scars on my heart.

“You’ve travelled further now than you ever managed before.”

“You didn’t tell me I’d have to subject him to this more than once!” It is doubtless a terrible idea to shout at a patron Arcana, but I don’t care, I’m furious.

She pads closer to stand companionably beside me. “He’s been left to fester in his wrong-headed beliefs for some time. Showing him a new path was never going to be easy. You knew, as with any ritual, the journey would extract its price.”

“Yes,” I admit. “And I didn’t ask questions, I simply trusted my instinct. Is this one of those ‘be careful what you wish for’ sort of lessons?”

The Moon bows her muzzle low to briefly touch my cheek. “Only if you let it,” she promises. “I have lent you my glamour and you have played your part. Temperance never consoled him and the Devil never harmed him…”

“It was all me – but what difference does it make if he doesn’t know? It was still real to him!” The weight of my words sink in and for a moment I close my eyes. This is the Moon’s price. She will lend her light to any spell you desire but her light illuminates all: you will never be in any doubt over what you have wrought. Julian’s knowledge doesn’t matter in this instance; it’s what I know. And I know I dragged him headfirst through the harshest quest the Arcana can offer. I hanged him, I danced with him, I let the plague consume him, I pulled out his heart, made him suffer through my death, and tricked him into forsaking his feathers, giving them up for a danger I was never in. He may have run the card’s gauntlet but the one wielding the whip was still me. I sag, hissing a low breath from between my teeth. Talk about the cure being as deadly as the disease…

“But your race is almost done,” she consoles. “And there is truth in what doesn’t kill you makes you-”

 _“Stranger,”_ I spit, just as she says,

“-stronger. You’ll see it’s true in time. Both you and Ilya have paid steep prices, but magic rewards fairly for all that it takes. There’s a balance to be maintained even now, no matter what the Devil may think.”

A soft light glimmers at the edge of my vision and I think I see a vast wolf with smoke-grey fur, while also seeing a tall woman with strong shoulders in a draped dress of grey and indigo. The Moon winks at me, then approaches to snuffle companionly at my temple. “Oh little Fool, who knows which Arcana may heed your call if you only ask?”

“Wait – I’m…? I thought… I don’t understand.”

“I’ve already told you. Look at it this way: Sleeps-In-Ashes may attend the Masquerade in a dress as white as the Moon, as silver as a Star, as gold as the Sun.” A shrug. “As feathered as the Hanged Man. Or as gilded as the Devil’s cage… She only need remember that all illusions fade when the clocks strike twelve.”

I turn the puzzle between my palms, twisting it back and forth until I can finally slot it – like the pentagram – into its correct place. The imagining of it twists against my fingertips like an endless Mobius Loop. “The Fool is boundless possibility, the Moon illusion… Put them together and… and so long as someone – anyone - believes, I’ll have a slice of any Arcana’s power? And the more someone believes… oh.” My eyes widen, my eyebrows arching high.

“The stronger the guise,” she agrees. She smiles, a sudden sickle-white flash of pleasure, although my magic can see the wolf’s bared fangs behind it. _“There’s my clever girl._ That’s why I chose you – the first since Ashnemain. I knew you’d understand.”

“Ashnemain is a faerytale.”

The silvery woman who is also a pale pewter-grey wolf as vast as the heavens grins at me and raises an eyebrow playfully. “Is she? I’ll be sure to tell her so. Or you could tell her yourself of course…”

I gape, I can’t help it.

“Which quest would you rather?”

I feel the lure of finding the truth in fantastic tales, tales I love, tales that helped me return once more to the living. I entertain, just for a moment, the thought of walking away into the twilight of my own faerytale… But that is a foolish, empty dream, and one this Fool is wise enough to discard. I shake my head. “I need to finish what I began; I need to help Julian and not give up. We must complete the ordeal. I need to help him – what the hells was the point of this if it leaves him broken and believing a different lie?”

A beautiful and ivory-filled lupine smile. “Clear-sighted even under pressure. Hm, very well…” She looks down at me and her countenance - although thoroughly wolfish - is kind. “A word of advice. The illusion of the Star still holds, for now. And you have a reflection of her gifts. But I’d get on with it, if I were you. It won’t last; borrowed power never does.”

I drag air into my lungs feeling wobbly and lightheaded as if I’d held my breath for far, far too long: as if this is the first breath of life after drowning in eternity. My eyes open, or at least I think they do, but all I can see is moonlight and all I’m aware of is the tired and dogged beat of my heart sounding in my ears and the laboured rasp of air in and out of my lungs like a saw.

I’m certain I’ve performed more magic in the past five days than I have in my life entire and I cannot find any strength within me left. My eyes are loathe to stutter close, pride the only thing propping them up, but pride is not enough. The Arcana flicker back and forth in my mind. The Hanged Man is sceptical of my achievements. Death is calm and patient as ever. Temperance smiles at me. The Devil sneers at my failure. The Tower does what it always does: fall. Somewhere high above is the Star, her light guiding those lost in endless night. I reach for her and my arm falters. I know I should try harder, but I’m so tired. And what did I achieve after all? Not much of anything. Slowly I release my grip on the Arcana, on the realm itself, on a rhythm like a steady drum that’s been with me my whole life: I begin to let go of everything.

It seems I tip back, falling towards infinity. Unfurling my fingers from the ledge is terrifying but now I’m in freefall it isn’t so bad; I’ve made my choice and my peace with it.

There’s a cry and something snags snare-tight around my wrists, around my very bones, yanking my arms harshly above my head, wrenching my shoulders almost out of their sockets and leaving me suspended above oblivion, bruised, battered and confused.

I’m no longer falling and yet I know I should be. This is wrong – everything is wrong. I try to summon the Moon’s blade to sever the cords but nothing happens. Dark feathers fall from the sky, faster and faster until all I can see is black.

I feel a wisp of magic, tentative and weak, seeking mine. It brushes against me and I see Julian clearly at last, alone in a dungeon, his feathers bloody and his talons bound.

Time moves too quickly, the moonlight casting shadows that merge, meld and dance, suggesting a night comprised of a month or more. Every so often there is true darkness or something like the rising hue of dawn: each time the soft silver light returns Julian seems more distraught, more dishevelled, more lost and undone. In this prison time is passing with arrow-swiftness: nights of solitude are condensed into minutes. I shudder at the thought of how old and empty Julian’s gaze might become if he isn’t pulled out of this loop of lunacy.

His eyes are closed and he’s muttering incoherently to himself. “I can’t lose you – I can’t…” A strangled laugh. “You always told me you could look after yourself, but since you’ve found me again... This magic you’re wielding is killing you! Please, please - I can’t bear it… _I’m not worth it,”_ he whispers. “You have to stop. I – I’m not as strong as you are. I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t leave me alone no matter what I did, and now – now all my fears are coming true…” His voice cracks, “Lana, I’m trying – I am – but I’m… I can’t take much more of this,” he says in a quiet, dead tone. “Every time I reach out my hand you slip through my fingers and into a new abyss. I can’t save you – I can’t even catch hold of you for more than a moment. I’ve had such terrible dreams… I lose you, over and over, over and over…” His words choke to a stop even as his arms seek to tighten around a figment of me, his chains pulling the movement up short.

I try to reach out with my magic and fail: we might as well be blind and trying to find one another in a thunderstorm. Despite the futility of it I don’t know what else to do, and I can’t simply watch him suffer alone. I try again and again before realising I’m working to solve the problem from the wrong way around. There’s no point trying to alter Julian’s dreams when his fear combats me at every turn. I need to give him a new dream - a different reality – one he believes, one where it’s easier for our magic to meet and twine together.

I’m beyond exhausted so it’s not going to be anything fancy; I take a ragged breath in preparation. I think of the ruined tavern, the Hanged Raven, remembering the dust and candle-soot, the battered furniture, the broken mirror, and Malak complaining darkly from the rafters. Slowly the grim, stone-flagged oubliette ripples and fades, solidifying instead into the grimy but welcome wreck of the Hanged Raven. I can smell dust in the air, tallow candles and woodsmoke, and the dry, dark scent of feathers.

“…Lana?”

“Mm,” is all the response I can manage.

Talons brush gently along my cheek, knuckles pushing wild straggles of hair away from my face. Long legs twine around and pin mine, arms crush me towards a chest containing a heart who’s beat is too anxious and too fast. I reach towards magic I cannot grasp, but before I’ve bullied the spell into being, Julian’s heartbeat seems to have slowed. The longer he holds me close, the calmer he becomes.

“My beautiful witch,” he murmurs. “Oh gods, Lana…” He hugs me closer until I feel so pressed and flattened against him that I might as well be origami. “I have you, I have you, I have you,” he repeats like broken clockwork.

“Will you break his delusions,” the Moon asks in the privacy of my skull, “or shall I craft him a new one?”

My magic sparks and primes on the offensive, crackling about my aura despite my exhaustion because I do _not_ need the Moon chasing me on this. _Nine Hells._ Fine. Please let me not regret this… I feel talons stroking through my hair and occasionally running down my cheek to my jaw and lower to the hollows of my neck, ghosting back and forth against my pulse as if checking I’m still alive. My eyes snap open.

“Lana?” Relief is drowned in paranoia in an instant. “Your - your eyes! You’re not… Who are you?” he tries to wriggle away from me but as it happens, he needn’t have bothered.

I feel my body float slowly upright and out of his grasp, emanating a gentle light to stand suspended before him as if held by the aether. I don’t entirely feel in control as I stare blindly at Julian and demand, “WE MADE A DEAL. DID WE NOT?” My voice is starlight and firmament.

It takes him a few moments to find the words despite his resolve, but finally he croaks out, “You’re Arcana, aren’t you? … Ye- yes. We did.”

I feel a sharp stab of power at the edge of my aura, celestial lightning prodding me, the hands of the clock ticking towards twelve. _“What do stars do?”_ Amidst the pain and confusion, I manage to catch the Moon’s glance and the accompanying smile of encouragement.

It’s not the answer I gave before, but it is the answer I need now. _“Burn,”_ I tell her.

White hot phosphor obliterates my sight, blazing from horizon to horizon and turning everything moon-white.

* * *

“Darling…” The word is repetitive and both gentle and forceful by turns. “Darling _please_ … Oh gods, please wake up… I’ll – I’ll do anything,” he says fervently, and shivers violently, the tremor starting in his shoulders then earthing in but never quite leaving his hands.

My memories are short; it’s not difficult to recognise his voice. Being called ‘darling’ in the Tower’s realm for the first time is not something I’m ever likely to forget. I had wished to be dear to him even as he took every opportunity to fashion distance between us, despite the fact he flirted with me and his breath caught whenever we stood close to one another…

Why did I have to fall for such a conflicted, contrary individual? He seemed happy enough to capitulate to everyone’s bad opinion of his character and yet could never surrender as easily to the good…

Julian had only lost a handful of memories in comparison to me, but that fistful of hourglass sand he gave away gnawed at him far worse than my missing past ever did me. But then I had Asra, and his easy patience and kindness alone reassured me that whomever I had been before, I had been worthy of his friendship. Julian had run away, whether to a ship or a tavern made no difference: he already mistrusted and hated himself so deeply that he thought himself capable of murder without even questioning his motives.

And yet this fugitive with a murderer’s brand marring his left hand is clutching at me, too weak to even sit up, all he can manage in one desperate flash of strength is to clasp me close to his chest, his talons curling gently around me as his eyelids stutter closed once more. For a while it’s restful – we both ran ourselves ragged – and sleep seems like a rare luxury especially in one another’s arms. But now Julian is shivering and making aborted twitching movements, his brows pinched together, stabbing against the bridge of his nose.

I’m still bleary and exhausted, barely on the right side of consciousness, but I do my best. “Julian? Are you alright? Are you dreaming?” He neither responds nor answers. With an effort I place my palm on his forehead and then swear with all the inventiveness of a dock-side sailor, _“Buggery fucking hells.”_ His skin is ashen, his cheeks flushed, and his brow is burning. I should fetch a cloth and cold water. I hold that thought as I leave the tavern and pull fresh water from the well… Only to open my eyes and realise I’m still sitting on the floor, swaying at an alarming angle over Julian’s fevered body. I can feel a headache born of exhaustion and frustration start to throb at my temples.

Alright then, if fetching water is out of the question I’ll have to improvise. I reach inside the well of my magic instead, having to plumb the depths for what seems like forever before I catch the smallest flicker of it, glimmering like ground diamonds in the dark. It answers my call with reluctance, grudgingly rising to my fingertips.

I realise I’ve given myself another thaumatergical nosebleed as I smudge it away with the back of my hand leaving a streak of what looks like moonlight on my skin. I put my palms together thinking of glaciers and snowballs and the frozen slickness of ice. My magic cools my hands until they’re as cold as meltwater. I place one of my palms on Julian’s forehead and he shudders and tries to twist away before weakening into submission. My right hand I touch against his neck and his chest in turn, trying to bring his fever down. He whimpers, and the pulse at his neck is rapid; his heart stuttering when it ought to be steady.

I stroke my fingers through the feathers of his hair and against the gaunt hollows of his cheeks, murmuring inconsequential things all the while. I utter his names amidst scattered endearments and promises that everything will be alright or entreaties that he must stay with me and not seek haven upon a distant shore where I cannot follow.

I watch the malaise wrack his body as it burns in his blood. I use every drop of magic I have left seeking to counter it, but it’s not enough. The headache grows, my nose bleeds, until at last with a stab of pain so do my eyes. My tears are pearlescent as moonwater: it’s the last thing my wavering vision sees staining my fingertips before darkness claims me.


	15. Chapter 15

I awake later – whether it’s hours or days I don’t know – I feel weak and shaky but at least there’s no pounding headache. I move gingerly trying to figure out where I am. An arm curls more tightly around me, tugging my shoulder to lie once more in perfect symmetry against the chest that’s at my back, snugging hips against mine. Panic starts to bubble in my heart - who the hells is this close to me? But then I catch the scent of leather, of cleansing herbs; rosemary, rose petals, and musk. The scent memory forms the shade of an individual in my mind: Julian. Without meaning to I relax; I’ve no need to wake and hold down the fort if Julian is watching over me. I must have curled towards him or made some noise because there are anxious hands on me in an instant and a voice calling my name.

“Lana?”

Is it my imagination or can I feel the calloused swirl of a fingerprint beneath the talons? He strokes my cheek, his movements helpless and relentless, trying to summon me back.

There are no words for how weak I am – how exhausted. My borrowed half heart is sorely overtaxed. But he said my name, and I can’t ignore the fear it’s laced with. I strive to open my eyes, and as I do, I try to raise trembling fingers towards him.

He clasps my hand immediately in an almost vice-like grip.

Something is different and I can’t tell what.

“Feathers,” the Moon prompts in the secrecy of my skull.

“Feathers…?”

“They don’t matter,” Julian whispers. “So long as you come back to me…”

“I’m alright,” I offer, the words sleep-slurred. I seek to burrow back into unconsciousness once more, but something is niggling at the back of my mind, something important insisting I open my eyes. Reluctantly I do so; I’m in a muddle of blankets and downy feathers black as the void beyond the stars. As my eyes focus it seems as if a host of bedspreads were murdered in our vicinity: there are feathers absolutely _everywhere_. I labour to twist around and face Julian.

He’s wrapped in a blanket; it’s draped around his hips leaving the long expanse of his torso and the majority of his legs free.

“You’re awake. Is your fever gone? Are you feeling better?” I blink: once, twice, and then again for good measure. His legs… his feet... What is it about his feet? “Your feet!” I all but screech. “They’re – they’re – your legs – you’re knees…”

He offers a small smile but hangs his head as he does so, running digits which are more long-nailed fingers than talons through the feathers on his scalp. Many are raked out, discarded flickers of darkness. I catch hints of bright red wisps of hair pushing up from beneath. The feathers that dusted his face like stubble are gone, as are most of the ones on his sternum and the longer feathers that were around his elbows. In places his skin looks red and sore as if it had been vigorously scratched, but other than that he is whole. He runs his fingers through his hair again, dislodging and scattering more feathers, revealing further strands of deep auburn. “Seem to have a moulting problem I’m afraid,” he murmurs, embarrassed.

“Julian…” I utter his name with wonder because I have no idea what else to say.

He sits up, rubbing at his arms self-consciously, scratching at the few feathers that remain.

I mean to scold him, but the words dry on my tongue as I catch sight of the vast darkness of his wings arcing from his back.

He blushes, turning away from my gaze. “Neither fish nor fowl. Apparently, I fail at being a demon too,” he jokes.

I remember the Moon’s words of how magic maintains a balance, demanding a price for its aid yet rewarding trials suffered through. “Dear gods and little fishes – your wings!”

“I’m sorry,” he says by rote, but any further apology he meant to offer fades as he takes in my expression, which if I had to categorise would be somewhere between glee and awe.

“Gods, Julian, you still have wings!”

“It’s going to make wearing a coat damnably difficult. I pity my tailor…”

“Your beautiful wings…”

His eyebrows jump into sharp arches. “Beautiful?”

I laugh, I can’t help it. “Of course they are, have you _seen_ them? They’re as gorgeous as the rest of you.”

He twitches a self-deprecating half-smile in response, apparently feeling a touch fragile about his appearance.

“Ah, no, none of that, I know how to cure this…”

“Lana – no – please!” His hand grasps mine apologetically. “No more magic unless we have to. Just for a day or so.” The storm grey of his eyes looks pained. “I don’t mean to tell you what to do…”

I huff a short laugh. “I’m not in a hurry to do any magic right now, not for a few days at least. I think I burnt through every scrap of power I had and then some…” Julian regards me oddly at that, a frown pinching his brows. “I was going to get something from my pack.” He lets go of my hand and watches as I get wobblily to my feet and search through my pack until with a small cry of triumph I find what I’m looking for. It’s a horn-backed brush with soft bristles; I can no longer remember where I found it in the merged realms nor why I picked it up – clearly an act of magical prescience on my behalf. I walk back to our feather-strewn nest of blankets and drop to sit cross-legged in front of him, holding my left hand out. “Arm,” I demand sternly. Bemused, he offers up his right. I grasp his wrist and then begin to brush along his forearm, encouraging the remaining feathers to work loose and fall.

Julian’s slight frown fades, his eyes close and he tries to make a hum of contentment, but the sound is closer to a soft groan from the back of his throat.

I smirk, amused, and attend to my task, running the brush up the length of his arm, gentling the feathers loose. When I’m finished his arm is almost entirely free of plumage, only a scattering of the newest and smallest feathers remaining. I work on his left arm next and then his chest and Julian shivers. I brush his neck and upper back, freeing the few feathers that remain on his shoulders; by the time I start to work on his hair Julian is so boneless he’s only sitting upright because his wings are braced against me. His head is tipped back to rest against my cupped palm as my other hand works the brush through the feathers of his hair. They fall readily and the deep red of Julian’s familiar curls unspool in their wake. By rights his hair ought to be fingernail-short, but time and rules don’t hold as fast as they once did and so I’m not surprised to find his hair is much the same as it ever was, longer in fact, long enough to tie back should he choose. I tell him to lie down on his front and he all but falls forward before making a half-hearted effort to arrange his limbs into a sensible configuration. I use the brush softly on his wings, straightening the barbs and realigning any feathers that have become ragged, encouraging them to lie sleekly amidst their fellows. Julian makes wordless sounds of appreciation, his wings rising to meet my touch. I smile, marvelling at the metallic hues hidden within the sable that sheen to the fore as I brush: they are glossy and scintillating when I’m done. I sit back on my heals with a sigh of satisfaction. “Julian? Have you fallen asleep?”

He turns his head to look at me, his eyes heavy-lidded and his cheeks dusted pink. “Er… not exactly. It would seem I find you brushing my wings… um… extremely pleasing.”

I raise an eyebrow at that fascinating titbit. I bite my lip, trying without success to trap my smile. “Oh? How pleasing?” I tease. “And is it more pleasing if I brush along the outer curve like this…?”

He shivers all the way down.

“Or is it more pleasing further in, where the feathers meet your back?”

Julian makes a muffled keening noise.

“Or how about here…?”

The keen transforms into a growl of desire as Julian sits up, wings flaring outwards and missing me by a whisker. I squeak in feigned shock as he pounces, grabbing me and bundling me sideways and onto my back, holding me down by my shoulders.

I smile; his cheeks are still flushed but his eyes are now wide and glittering with want. I gaze steadily at him, my look encouraging – no - _daring_ him to act. His lips part and for a moment I think he’ll speak, asking for permission or perhaps validation. A slight shake of the head and there is instead a new determination in his expression. He sits up and pulls me towards his chest before tugging up the hem of my shift and peeling it up over my torso and head, mussing my already chaotic curls. The shift is tossed aside and he’s kissing me, his lips pressing at first gently then hungrily against mine, as he lowers me back down amidst the blankets. The heat of his mouth moves down to my neck, teeth grazing the skin. I lift my hands to his body, fingers ghosting against his ribs and across the plain of his chest; in response he moans and bites me harder. I gasp; Julian enjoys the noise and so moves his mouth further down my body, nipping and licking to ensure I make the sound again and again. One of his hands braces him up whilst the other traces down to between my legs, leisurely exploring. He smiles wickedly, allowing his clever fingers to tease and stroke, a pleased hum deep in his throat when I moan and push my hips towards him, already wet and wanting.

“Julian…”

“Mm…?” he leans down to kiss me and then to bite upon the curve where my neck meets my shoulder.

“I… I want you. Please…”

“How much do you want me?” he asks lazily, his fingers still diligently sending small shocks of pleasure through me as his mouth finds new places to taste.

The want has evolved into a need that is almost a physical ache. _“Julian…”_

“But I like watching you writhe,” he admits, his voice husky with desire.

“I swear to the _gods_ ,” I growl urgently.

“I never can refuse when you take the lead,” he says with a smile, changing the angle of his hips so he can push inside me with a sigh of pleasure.

Not having to concentrate on a magical ritual at the same time makes my body more responsive to Julian’s ministrations; every brush of skin, every thrust of hips and liquid kiss sends the heat pooling between my legs fizzing through my nerves with as much force as the magic had. The sensations mount, each one more exquisite than the last and all too soon I’m spiralling towards a crest of pleasure that forces a bitten off cry from my lips. My climax cascades Julian towards his own, and a few moments later he’s gasping my name and profanities in breathless wonderment.


	16. Chapter 16

After, when we are lying side by side feeling indolent and sated, he nestles against me, his nose in the curls of my hair, his arms wrapped tightly around me. “Will I wake up?” he asks at length.

“Wake up? If all of that was done in your sleep, I don’t know whether to be insulted or impressed!”

“Is this another dream?” He strives to sound philosophical, but his voice is small and afraid. “I shouldn’t complain if it is, think it’s the first dream I’ve had that hasn’t been a nightmare. Dreams of endless waking – waking from one nightmare only to fall headlong into a worse one. If – if this is a dream, then I’m done with waking. I want to stay here…” His arms grip me tighter, holding onto me with a sorrowful sort of desperation.

I can’t tip my head to meet his gaze, so I squirm in his grasp until he loosens his hold and allows me to turn over to face him. His eyes are wide and mirror-bright with vulnerability. I touch my fingers to his cheek and then card an errant lock of hair away from his face. “It’s not a dream,” I promise. “No more nightmares. No more endless waking.”

“How can you be sure?”

I sigh and force myself to steadily meet his gaze.

He frowns in puzzlement before his expression falls to something darker as realization dawns. “You…? But… but why would you do that?”

“You didn’t just have the Devil’s chains,” I say softly, “You had your own too. And they’re much harder to break.”

He lets out a sardonic bark of laughter. “Finally, something I’m good at: tying myself up in – what? – misconceptions? Pity I can’t make a profession of it…” The brackish humour leaves him as suddenly as it arrived and he quiets, looking pensive. “Is that why I changed again? I dreamt I made a deal to give up my feathers…”

I nod. “You should have changed back when I broke the Devil’s chains – you had your soul back – all the demonic trappings ought to have fallen away immediately.”

He quirks a small half-smile. “Pasha’s always telling me I’m stubborn.”

“I’d usually list it as one of your virtues, but not in this case. Your own magic…”

“ _My_ magic?”

“…was binding you because you believed that was what you deserved.”

“Asra made out there was significantly more to magic than mere wishful thinking,” he snipes sourly.

I roll my eyes. “How on earth did you and Asra manage to make such a disaster of your relationship?”

He opens his mouth and then closes it again. Finally, he says quietly, “It was my fault; although – oh irony of ironies – I didn’t see it like that at the time. I felt inferior, felt I had something to prove, I suppose. Asra makes things look effortless – everything comes so easily to him…. Everything I loved about him most, they were qualities I lacked in myself. Instead of appreciating him and trying to learn better, I… I don’t know… put myself in competition with him? A foolish endeavour, rightfully doomed to fail,” he admits with a self-mocking smile.

I shake my head. “Asra is wonderful,” I agree, “but so are you. You saved Portia and yourself from a shipwreck…”

“The seals helped,” he mutters.

“You learnt medicine and practiced it on ships and battlefields. You heard of a plague in a neighbouring city and instead of taking the first road in the opposite direction you headed straight for it, determined to find a cure. Your willingness to help others no matter the danger to yourself is astounding, Julian, it truly is. The only trouble is, somewhere down the line you became convinced you didn’t have any worth: that unless you were useful you hadn’t earnt the smallest scrap of joy that came your way. You don’t have to be so selfless all the time; you’re allowed to want things – to want happiness for yourself. It’s not selfish to want not to hurt, not to be alone.”

He swallows. “I don’t want to feel like that anymore,” he says quietly.

“Then don’t.”

That half-smile again. “Is it really so simple?”

I scrunch my nose in consideration. “Probably not, no, but it’s a good place to start.”

“Hm. I think it’s already started. I think it started the night I came to your shop.”

“Broke into my shop,” I correct. “Why didn’t you use the door?”

“I suppose I’d become used to sneaking about the place. Plus, I rather assumed if I knocked on the door, you’d open it, take one look at me, and scream your head off for the palace guards.”

“Nice to know you thought so highly of me!” I rag him. “Instead you broke in and got a bottle to the head for your trouble.”

“Yes,” he muses, “that _was_ unexpected. Who knew witches could be so violent?”

I giggle. “Idiot,” I accuse fondly. I trace a finger lightly and with infinite care across his brand, traversing the shape of it with my fingertip.

He lowers his gaze to the blankets, his expression sombre and unreadable.

“It seems an unnecessary cruelty to me; I’ve never understood it.” Julien still stares at the weave of the blankets, but I know he’s listening. “Why brand someone who’s sentenced to hang?”

One side of his mouth tugs up in a sharp and queasy smile. “I can answer that twice over, my dear. First and foremost, it’s for the theatre of it. Have you never gone to watch? No, I don’t suppose you have; Asra always found that sort of thing in poor taste. I shall tell you. They erect a platform in the market square – the very platform that will a week later house the gallows on which one is to hang. Praetor Vlastomil is seated in a high-backed chair, ready to read out one’s sentence and pass judgement, which, other than his revolting worms, is the only thing that gives him any joy in this world. Consul Valerius is there too, in a foul mood because he’s been forced to forsake his wineglass. Once the sentence is pronounced, a brazier is carried onto the platform with a single branding iron in it, already glowing in readiness. Consul Valerius makes a proclamation then, which reveals the second reason – the tradition if you like – of why murderers are branded. I can declaim it for you, it’s rather stirring, and the words have seared themselves into my memory…”

I don’t want to hear the speech, but I sense Julian needs to recite it.

 _“Good people of Vesuvia,”_ he begins grandly in a passing imitation of the courtier’s supercilious, nasal tone. _“I, Consul Valerius, call upon you to stand witness to the marking of the condemned, Julian Devorak. As this brand mars his flesh so shall it also mar his soul, allowing that even the gods themselves may know of his iniquity and never grant his spirit peace.”_

I stare at him, eyes wide, at a loss for words. “Julian, that - that’s awful,” I finally manage.

“Nothing like a good bit of theatre, eh? Then the palace guards chain one’s left hand to a butcher’s block, and Valerius brands it, looking disgusted and bored as he does so, if memory serves.” He notes my stricken look. “Don’t lose any sleep over it, my dear. I had my mark by then, the burn healed almost as quickly as it was inflicted.”

“I… Julian, I… I could heal it if you want me to. Erase it entirely, I mean.”

He draws his hand away from mine. “If it bothers you that much,” he says coolly, “I can always bind it until a suitable pair of gloves can be found.”

“No! It doesn’t bother me. Well, that it was done to you bothers me a great deal,” I amend. “I don’t mind the mark, but it must be horrible to catch sight of your own hand and have to remember that hateful speech Valerius delivered.”

He looks at me for an instant, faintly surprised, before returning his gaze to the brand. “I’ll admit, I found it hard to stomach at first. A permanent reminder of a crime I couldn’t remember. Which,” he adds with a grin, “as ironies go is almost farcical. But, well, a murderer’s brand can do wonders for one’s reputation in the right places.” A too-easy shrug. “And after all this time… It’s only a scar.”

Despite his words I can’t help but think some of Julian’s belief that he is an irredeemably bad person can find its root in the idea that not only his flesh but his very soul is marked as tainted.

“And whilst we’re on the topic, if you’re so keen to erase scars how is it you’ve kept yours?” He gestures to the pale sliver lines that criss-cross and snake around my forearms.

I smile and shake my head. “Where else do you think the silver cord comes from?”

Julian looks perplexed and unhappy but accepts my answer. “Do you miss it?” he asks instead.

“Miss what?”

“Vesuvia. Your shop.”

I make a face. “Not as it is now, no.”

“Is… is there any way to fix all this? Sunder the realms, put things back as they ought to be?” He struggles to keep his voice level.

I frown, reaching for the Arcana, curious to see who will answer. The Devil appears first looming large in my mind, his grin as insufferable as ever. Then a beacon of light shines in the darkness as the Star winks at me in encouragement. I start to smile in return before a tidal rush of seawater douses everything; out of the receding waves I see the leathery neck and polished shell of a turtle as it swims serenely onwards.

“Lana?”

I open my eyes. “I… I think there might be. We need to do something about the Devil first of all, to stop him corrupting any more of the Arcana.”

“Corrupting?”

“Well,” I correct myself, “corrupting people and thereby weakening the Arcana.”

“Like Valdemar and Death?”

“Yes. It wouldn’t surprise me if Volta and the other courtiers were affected similarly.”

“So… if I’d remained bound, I would have weakened the Hanged Man?” Julian tests.

“If you’d made more deals, over time, yes.”

He looks miserable. “I think I did you know. When I tried to fight the Devil. He always managed to twist anything I tried, anything I said, into a noose around my neck.” He shakes his head. “Afterwards I could never quite remember what I’d bargained for or what I’d given away… although since he had my soul I can’t imagine what I had left to give him. My self-respect I suppose, or perhaps my sanity…”

I cup my hand along his jaw and stroke my thumb against his cheek. “You were incredibly brave to fight against him after all that had happened…”

“Have you always been able to manifest glowing daggers?”

I laugh. “He asks, purely in the spirit of scientific enquiry!”

“What’s wrong with scientific enquiry?”

“Nothing in the least. And no, the silver cord and the dagger are new.”

His eyebrows do something complicated. “A gift from the moon?”

“Yes,” I agree simply in the face of his surprise. “However, unfortunately, stabbing the Devil in the face will not separate the realms. Although it will be,” I add, “immeasurably satisfying.”

Julian can’t help but smile at my ferocious expression. “My violent little witch!” he murmurs, taking my hand to bestow a kiss upon my palm.

“I’m not little, you just happen to be ridiculously tall,” I complain as he snickers at my indignation.

“Ridiculously?!”

“Dashingly,” I amend. “But we were meant to be discussing the realms. After we’ve got rid of the Devil we’ll have to go in search of the World.”

“Er… aren’t we in the world?”

“The World from the Arcana, or more specifically their realm. I think, if I understood it correctly, their realm is the sea that used to separate all the other realms. It’s the space in between.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“Then we shall have quested for naught. But I don’t know why you’re complaining, you always boast how much you love adventure.”

“This is true,” he concedes. “Questing for the space in between…” He smiles wryly. “That’s awfully quixotic of us.”

“Then we shall have to be exceptionally heroic to pull it off,” I tell him with a kiss. “What do you think? Are you up for the task?”

He kisses me back, his lips lingering against mine, his gaze soft. “My love, where you’re concerned, I do believe I’m up for anything.”


	17. Chapter 17

“Well then,” I chide with a crooked smile. “Shouldn’t we stow our belongings and cast off?”

Julian looks startled, whether by the nautical phrase coming from my mouth, or by the idea of immediacy and action I can’t tell. He holds onto my hand even as I stumble to stand.

I giggle as the blankets fall away. “You can’t hold my hand – I – I need to concentrate!” It’s not false modesty; this isn't will-working I’ve completed on my own before. Even holding Julian’s hand could play hazard with my concentration. I need to get it right – one clean slate – then I can deal with distractions. I close my eyes, focus, lift my hands to either side of my head in a gesture reminiscent of mimed cat ears, then cross and re-cross my palms as my hands ghost in a pattern across my torso. (I’m aware that with practice or need, items may be called immediately from the realms into existence; both Nadia and Asra always managed it with ease. But they’ve been doing it for years; not to mention that now I feel it’s less about summoning what you want, and more about banishing the infinite possibilities you don’t.)

I open my eyes and look down at myself. I have strong over-the-knee boots suitable for hiking or riding and dark home-spun cross-laced britches that are comfortable and durable. There's a loose, raven-tailed flax blue shirt and a sleeveless leather jerkin over it. A wide and beautifully crafted war belt cinches my waist and a narrow everyday belt sporting a dark, horn-handled dagger in a sheath completes the ensemble. A lightweight charcoal-grey cloak is tied about my shoulders; my hair is caught up with pins and secured by a scarf patterned in purple and indigo.

Julian blinks at the transformation before remembering the Countess and Asra had done similar things before. He quirks a small smile. “Out of all the outfits you could wear, _that’s_ the one you choose? Where’s the drama - the theatre? You have a good imagination and nothing but possibility!”

My expression narrows at the jibe. I remember a story I heard at the docks of a ship called the Goblin that sailed in the South and was rightly feared by all sea-faring folk. I remember a rather impassioned description of her sorceress-captain too. I concentrate, and my appearance ripples like a mirage: my hair grows and winds itself into complex milk-hued elflocks decorated with trinkets. My eyes bleach and then burn to gold. I’m wearing stays, hitched petticoats, a wide-cuffed coat with many buttons and an elaborate hat adorned with white peacock feathers. Dark shadows writhe strangely at my back.

“The Bone Pirate…!” Julian scuffles hastily back amongst the blankets.

I grin evilly at him, draw my cutlass and level the point towards his chest. Then, unwilling to tease him further, I shake myself and the travelling clothes I’d wanted reappear, the strange ostentatious milk-and-cream outfit melting into the aether. “That’s what you get for insulting my choice of clothes!”

Julian has recovered from his shock and looks at me slyly. “It’s a pity you didn’t keep it, it suited you.”

I check my clothes, making sure my arms have full movement, that my boots are comfortable, that my pockets are deep and capable of stowing interesting things. I roll my shoulders in a shrug and laugh, shaking my head in mock despair. “Trust you to fancy the Bone Pirate…”

He makes a hasty, dismissive gesture. “You’re more lovely by far…”

“You’d love for her to take you prisoner and have you tied up in the rigging…” I know I’ve guessed correctly when Julian’s cheeks flush furiously. I laugh again because I do find Julian extremely appealing when he’s flustered and also because I’m finding the idea of Julian tied up in ship’s rigging rather interesting myself. I shake my head to dismiss the thought. “Come on, much as I appreciate the view, you need to get dressed.”

The blush is accompanied by a startled look. “Er… I… do I have to do it? Couldn’t you?”

I gesture for his hands and encourage him to his feet. “No, come one, show me what your scientific brain and fantastic imagination can come up with.” I release his hands and take a single step away, just enough to give him room.

Doubtfully he closes his eyes, then opens them again to ask, “Must I do the wavy gestures?”

“No, it just helped me to focus. Nadia’s able to change her outfit in the blink of an eye, remember.”

“The blink of an eye,” he mutters. “Right.” He closes his eyes and takes a long, steadying breath.

The aether around him starts to darken and transform into an approximation of the clothes he wore in Vesuvia. I smile, but a moment later have my hand clamped across my mouth to stifle the giggles threatening to escape. In imagining his short tunic and voluminous coat, he had forgotten to take his wings into account. Each wing is pinioned, clad in a tight-buttoned sleeve of its own and draped in an overcoat that hangs from them like a tent.

Julian makes a strangled sound and looks stricken.

I marshal my expression and step forward, clasping both of his hands again. “It’s alright, here, close your eyes again. Take a breath, and imagine all the threads unravelling and falling away… There, that’s better. Now, consider the problem of your wings: they need to be unencumbered, free to move, free to be admired.”

Julian huffs a rueful snort.

“Stop that – _I_ certainly want to admire them. You need to think how best to construct a garment that’s easy enough to take on and off when you want to, but that’s engineered to accommodate your wings.”

His eyebrows cant at complicated angles as he works over the problem. “Everything would need to fasten at the back,” he decides.

“The shirt could be slit at the back with a tie to fasten it together at your waist…”

“The jacket could have snaps at the neck and the waist, perhaps with a panel that lies to cover the space between my wings…”

“Julian? Open your eyes.”

He does so, and then looks down at himself. “I – I did it?”

“You did it wonderfully. How does it feel? Can you move easily?”

Julian moves his arms and stretches his wings, his movements easy. His narrow trousers, sash and long boots are just like the ones he used to wear, as is the collar of a white flax shirt I can see; his jacket however is a structural work of art in dark leather, crossing intricately at the back around his wings and fastening with silver snaps.

“And the finishing touch…” I pull a black silk ribbon from thin air, motioning Julian to kneel down so I can fuss with his hair, tying the upper section back away from his eyes and leaving the rest loose to frame his face. “Perfect.” I step around his wings so I can kiss him, his lips soft and yielding beneath mine. To my surprise, with a small sound of regret, Julian breaks the kiss and stands, dipping his head and looking away.

I do my best not to scowl. “Are you alright?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Julian?” I say carefully, “we have two paths. Either we talk to one another about important things – even when they hurt – or we don’t. Neither of us need Asra’s cards or the Arcana to tell us that one path is better than the other.”

Julian looks at me, then his gaze lowers bashfully to the floor, his wings giving little twitches of agitation. “I know I ought, but I can’t say thank you. Not yet. It’s all… been a bit much. The dreams, magical cords and the feathers…” A thought occurs, that judging by his expression is surprising and then oddly calming. “It must be similar to the amputation of a corrupted limb,” he muses. “One’s grateful of course, but it’s all… the shock of it doesn’t leave space for gratitude, not immediately at least.” He risks looking at me out of the corner of his eye, shielded by long lashes.

I suspect he thinks I’ll be angry with him, but to his credit he doesn’t apologize for the turbulence of his feelings. I nod. “I was rather running with the hope that forgiveness would be more forthcoming than permission.”

He lets out a startled laugh at that followed by a crooked grin. “I cannot fault your conclusion. And I ought to berate you for your deviousness, but in honesty I’m simply grateful it is aligned with and not against me.” He draws me into a sudden hug, catching me off balance and enfolding me entirely with a chuckle. “My victorious little witch! And so sneaky I never saw the battle coming… I should crown you with victory laurels.”

“Ivy,” I correct him. “The Ravensbourne witches are always crowned with ivy.”

“Ravensbourne?”

My mind curls away, becoming vague in self-defence as pins-and-needles prick at my thumbs and fingers. “It… it’s a river…” My eyelids stutter, wishing to close but I dizzily drag them open. “It’s where I – I…”

“Lana?” One hand unfolds to cup my cheek and turn my face towards him. “What’s happening? Oh no no no, I’m not having this again – _damn_ not having my mark… _Lana!”_

The pins-and-needles vanish along with the vertigo, yet in the same instance Julian sways and staggers to catch his balance. I pull away from his arms just enough to help brace him and look up at his face: a single dark tear of blood is running leisurely from his right eye.

“Lana, your – your eyes are weeping, although it doesn’t look like blood or tears…”

“Yours does.”

“What?” He wipes a hand hastily against his eyes, his breath stuttering to a shocked stop when he sees the blood smudged across the back of his fingers. “Oh gods,” he utters, unable to mask the fault-line of horror in his voice. “It’s come back…”

“Wait – let me see!” I grab the washcloth I had been about to fold into my pack and use it instead to wipe the blood from his cheek and around his eye. “Step further into the light…” I examine his eye and the delicate, papery skin beneath it minutely, searching for those hateful tell-tale veins of crimson, for the rot-hued pallor in his sclera that would burst and fill with blood. I let out a heartfelt sigh of relief when I find no symptoms; I hadn’t thought I would, but I was glad to be proved correct. “It’s not the plague, Julian.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes. _Perfectly certain,”_ I reiterate. “I think it’s something else entirely.”

His look turns suspicious, uncertain how to interpret my tone. “And what would that be exactly?”

“I’ve a better idea. Here, just stand with your arms in front of you, palms up – no, not straight out – as if you’re carrying a box.”

He obediently adjusts his posture. I stand in front of him with my hands out, palms facing down, a breath away from his. “Alright. Can you sense my hands close to yours?”

“I can see them,” Julian counters, relying on the empirical rather than the mystical.

I manage not to laugh. “Close your eyes,” I command with more exasperation than I’d meant to express. “Can you feel the warmth of my skin?”

He scowls in concentration and after a few moments, nods. “Yes.”

“Good. Can you feel the rough shape of that warmth, feel that it comes from my palms?”

He looks ready to scowl again but instead the alabaster of his cheeks colour. “Yes.”

I raise an eyebrow at that, amused that apparently Julian has no difficulty visualising my palms in close proximity to his skin. “Concentrate on that feeling, on the sense of them.”

He swallows and nods.

I move my hands a little higher, careful to keep them level above Julian’s. “Can you feel something that joins our palms, a sort of tension? So that when I lower mine towards yours… It relaxes. But when I draw away… it grows tighter?”

His brows lower in concentration and his eyes roam back and forth under shuttered lids, blindly seeking what I’d instructed him to discover. I raise and lower my palms towards and away from his several more times before his head twitches to the side with an expression of confused surprise. “I – I think… I think I feel it?”

I smile. “Dr Devorak, top of the class! I want you to hold onto that feeling as strongly as if you were holding onto a rope to haul the sail on a ship… Alright?” In response his fingers twitch, eager to hold onto the rope he’s conjured from his memory. I move my hands a little higher, so his fingers won’t brush mine. “It’s alright, you can hold it however you need too.” His hands move, elegant fingers realigning as if he is about to help reef a sail. I take a long step away from him, then another and a third. He scowls and changes his stance, resettling his weight to counterbalance the growing tension he can feel between his hands.

“What are you doing?” he demands as I take two more exaggerated paces back, almost at the door now. “Lana, it – it doesn’t feel right – what are you doing?”

My heart swells and cracks at the fact he still has his eyes closed in trust. “If you don’t like it, then I suggest you do something about it…”

It was, all in all, not the most sensible thing to say. I thought I’d been ready for Julian to tug me back in his direction, but I hadn’t been prepared for his magic to surge along the silver cords connecting us and add its strength to his as he lent forward and then yanked sharply like he was trying to haul anchor all on his own.

I’m almost ripped off my feet and flung towards Julian, who – thank the gods – is not as magically blind as Asra claims, because he opens his eyes, arms and wings to catch me just before we collide. His wings batter the air to provide a powerful counterbalance and prevent us from falling in a heap to the floor. Even so, we are both a little shaken by the exercise.

“Oof! We’ll have matching bruises. Are you alright? What _was_ that?”

I laugh, I can’t help it. I’m going to have to be a lot more careful with my instructions if I’m to teach Julian to use magic. I untangle myself from his grasp and rub absently at my wrists. “That, Dr Devorak, was proof that your magic can traverse the silver cords that bind us. When you panicked and sought to heal me, you called upon your mark.”

“But I don’t…”

“Which is gone,” I agree, “yes. But your magic still remembers what to do. It knows the procedure, even when the tool it utilised – your mark – is no longer available.”

Julian’s eyes roam my face, but I can tell he’s not really seeing me; he’s thinking, teasing possibilities apart, pacing back and forth in his own head. At last he blinks and, “Tethered,” he recalls. “You said we were tethered… Through the tether, my magic can use the connection to heal you… to find you… and to pull you to me?”

I make a little gesture with my fingers, drawing a pentagram in the air, leaving a glowing after-image to burn there for a few moments. “Gold star,” I tell him with a smile. “Although,” I add, “that definitely wasn’t something I had imagined as a side-effect when I cast that particular spell.”

Julian purses his lips, and then his annoyance melts into a wryly amused smile. “I don’t suppose for one moment you did; however, if I can heal you with ease again this does bring me several steps closer to being able to thank you and actually mean it.”

Within the privacy of my thoughts I wonder whether I should argue back: ask if he’d rather chains and feathers forged of fear and hate, than secure cords of moonlight and wings that are beloved… I reject the impulse and hear a pleased, silvery laugh in the aether as I do so. _Seven hells._ Why did I expect any different? I lean forward and fuss with a clean corner of washcloth, wiping the shining trails of thaumaturgy from my face. The Arcana give their aid, but they’re not above testing or playing games while they do so; they must have their payment after all. It would seem the Moon likes to test I’m still as clearsighted as I claim. I sigh deeply as I finish wiping at my eyes and then just stare at the iridescent marks on the cloth.

Julian reaches over my shoulder to capture and examine the cloth with one hand, the other weighing heavily on my shoulder. At last he tosses the cloth back towards my pack and makes a study of my eyes. “It’s neither blood nor tears,” he states in Dr Devorak’s more authoritative voice. His fingers grip my jaw firmly, tilting my head back and forth. “And yet you’re neither alarmed nor surprised, suggesting that it has occurred before and that you know precisely what it is.”

I give a vague shrug because I don’t know, not exactly, but I can guess. “Thaumaturgy. Magic.”

“You’re bleeding _magic?”_

“Yes – no – I – I don’t know!”

Julian looks thunderous.

“Don’t over-react! So I have nose bleeds and strange tears – so what?” I regret the sentence the moment it leaves my lips. “Before we forget,” I counter hastily, “you _literally_ allowed yourself to be executed for information, not knowing whether your mark would be strong enough to bring you back!” I’d rather expected Julian to claim that he had known, but to my surprise his eyes shift to the floor and he looks uncomfortable and chastised.

“There was so much at stake,” he mumbles helplessly. “What sort of man would I be if I didn’t take that chance? Yes, my life was forfeit… But if I won, I could have saved Vesuvia from its suffering by ridding it of the Red Plague.”

Usually, when speaking about Lucio, about the plague, about the past, Julian liked to elevate every situation until it was worthy of the stage and he the master bard recounting it. But this time his voice is quiet and strained and I realise that his bravado has always been only that. Julian the doctor, the murderer, the pirate, the swashbuckler, the hero, the villain: each character larger than the last but every one of them nothing more than an empty mask. Bereft of faerytales, Julian had tried to craft his own, and had ended up following in Amleth’s footsteps.

Amleth’s tale is near universal in the lands around Vesuvia, but it differs in every port. He is a young lord; deposed by his own uncle, betrayed by his own mother, and harried to madness by the ghost of his murdered father. He, along with - depending on the version of the tale - his best friend, his lover, his tutor, or his sister, are smuggled by loyal subjects onto a ship heading to a friendlier city: one far away across foreign waters. But it’s not to be; pirates attack the ship, and steal Amleth and his companion away, forcing them to join in on all sorts of jaunts and adventures. What fate ultimately befalls Amleth and his companion is up to regional taste too; sometimes it’s comedic, sometimes heroic, sometimes starkly tragic.

The Nevivon version is a picaresque farce until the final act where it becomes dark and dives into tragedy: it’s one of my least favourite tellings. I can’t help but spit, “You’re not bloody _Amleth!”_

“Amleth the Pirate King? But he scuppered the Salted Scourge and rescued the harbour master’s daughter when she’d been kidnapped by Captain Fort-Brass of the Vollish Sea! Later Phelia – the harbour master’s daughter – is stolen by merfolk and Amleth…”

I groan and mask my eyes with my hand. “Of _course_ that’s the version you know…” It occurs to me that no matter what stories Julian had been told growing up, he would have reacted to them with equal fervour. He wanted to be a hero, to make a difference, to save people; and at the same time couldn’t forgive himself for not saving his parents from that shipwreck. Pulling his little sister to shore wasn’t enough. Just one soul saved from one hundred?

_Weakling. Coward. Failure._

I can hear the words that have echoed in Ilya’s head long before he grew into Julian, guilt-ridden and seeking to atone for crimes that were never his. Tears sting my eyes and I move to scuff them away. Julian catches my hand and then gently releases it once more when the liquid traced across my skin is nothing more than saline.

His face makes a strange expression as he tries to mask his own agenda. “I apologise,” he offers, “I’m crowding you.”

I grab his hand before he can step away. “Dear gods, you’re terrible at this,” I berate him softly with a smile. “Not sacrificing yourself for someone doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to care…” A sudden memory assaults me, the clearest and most all-enveloping I’ve ever had whilst awake...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those unaware, Amleth's saga actually exists, and it was the main influence Shakespeare drew upon when writing Hamlet!


	18. Chapter 18

It’s my first day of work at Dr Devorak’s clinic in the city. The main space within the building has been sectioned off into two: those who fear they are afflicted by the plague are in one section, and those who have a different malaise or injury are in the other. The spaces are kept scrupulously separate; the attendants and apprentices all wear gloves and masks.

There are three lads who’s job it is fetch water from a deep well and leave it outside the clinic before dumping any of the used buckets into a lye vat to bleach out any contagion that might have held to the wood. There’s talk of buckets being made of tin or lead, copper or silver: each metal rumoured to be more resistant to the contagion than the last. But metal is costly and there is the question of funds…

The clinic is gifted a tin bucket and a copper drinking cup by a benefactor, and for a time amongst the staff, moral runs high.

Two days later, Dr Devorak is summoned to the palace. When he comes back to the clinic the next morning, he looks even more haunted and sleepless than usual; but despite his countenance he brings good tidings. A stranger has apparently donated four silver vases, five silver cups, three copper jugs of differing capacity and two small copper pans. Those who work in the clinic are overjoyed: they now have more tools than they had before and better means of purifying water and brewing tinctures.

It’s only Dr Devorak who appears depressed and dissatisfied, mumbling something about the pockets of his coat not being big enough, and if only he could procure a copper bucket and a lead tube that dripped the water into a silver flask, each metal purifying the water in turn… He’s begun to pace even whilst unaware of his surroundings, a moment away from tripping over his boots or head-first into the nearest wall. He stays in his study all day, scribbling things in his journal, demanding answers of the aether, occasionally casting a book to the floor when it’s displeased him by not revealing the answers he seeks.

“Is… is Dr Devorak alright?” I ask Kitty as she and I scrub the clinic tables with lye at the end of the day when the patients have left, and the plague sufferers have been driven to the docks to be ferried to the Lazaret. “I don’t think he’s left his study all day. Hasn’t eaten. Does he even sleep?”

Kitty, elder sister and mother hen to all us apprentices, shakes her head with a smile. “Don’t you mind him. He’s dedicated is all; takes his job seriously. And all you little ones follow him ‘round like ducklings, fussing all the while.” She grins. “He was a ship’s churgeon and a battlefield butcher before he came here. Rumour is he’s travelled all over, learning as he goes.” She chuckles. “Less than a week here and you’re already starry-eyed. Well, you’re not the first...”

“I’m not!” I protest. Whenever I look at the doctor, I don’t feel stars in my eyes at all; I feel something akin to a fish-hook of confusion and anxiety knifing in my gut, and I’m willing to do almost anything to get rid of the sensation.

Kitty gives me a knowing look. “You want to splint his wounds; I can see it.” She clucks her tongue. “Can’t splint a broken spirit, child,” she advises with practical kindness, moving away from me as she sets to scrubbing the next table over.

A frown of worry pinches beneath the scarf that ties my hair back, keeping it out of trouble. When my duties are complete, before I leave, I walk softly over to Dr Devorak’s study and silently crouch to peer through the narrow gap between the door and frame as provided by a crooked hinge.

The doctor is pacing and muttering to himself, his arms expressive. At times he looks triumphant and bolts to his desk to write down his thoughts. But after every triumph comes an inevitable tragedy as he consults and re-checks his library of notes and realises he has already attempted, or already disproved his new theory. The offending journal will be cast to the floor and Dr Devorak will sink down upon his chair, his head in his hands, utterly despondent. In less time than it takes to boil an egg, the entire frantic pantomime is playing out again.

I stand and leave, my boots cat-soft upon the boards. I can’t splint all his wounds, but I can certainly splint the obvious one. Tomorrow is the ninth day: the last day of the week, the day of rest. The clinic will have a skeleton-staff, and Dr Devorak will be expected to visit the palace and make pronouncements about the Count’s condition again.

I wrap my cloak more securely around me and hurry back to my shop. If Asra were there he would chide me, advise me against my course of action. But Asra has been travelling as he so frequently does; I need share the shop only with myself, next door’s cat, and my terrible plans of action.

I brew tea with more ingredients than are usual, muttering and gesturing over the kettle as it boils. The steam makes me sneeze, which I take as a good sign. I add liquorice root, pepper, allspice, cinnamon and honey to the mix, and decant it into a tall pottery flask. Before I leave, I put out scraps for next door’s cat – a pantherine brute of a creature with a surprisingly sweet nature - and hurry back to the clinic.

At this hour the front door’s locked; I have a key but that route will take me past both wards, the washroom and the storeroom before revealing the corridor that leads to my destination. Instead I traverse the adjacent alley and unlatch the gate at the end that brings me to the courtyard with the well where our water’s drawn, and from there to the clinic’s back door whose lock has _never_ worked, according to Kitty.

I sneak in and carefully close the door behind me as I let my eyes adjust to the scant candlelight; it’s warmer but more meagre by far than the moon’s clear, high luminescence that had blessed my journey here. I square my shoulders and ready an excuse on my lips for why I should be here, after hours, when I’d been seen leaving for home already with the majority of the assistants. As it happens, fate is with me: I pass only Nim in the corridors, and she simply inclines her long canvas mask to me in acknowledgement before continuing to hurry to dispose of the bowlful of dirty rags and dressings she carries. I raise my eyes heavenward in gratitude and carry onwards.

I take a breath, then knock sharply on the door I want.

There is a sudden stillness from the room beyond. “…Yes?”

“It’s Lana. I have the report you requested.”

“Leave it, I’ll look at it tomorrow.”

“Forgive me, but you were adamant you needed it before I left… So, s-so I’ve finished it…”

There is an odd strangled noise from behind the door, then the sound of Dr Devorak’s well-heeled boots striking the boards before the door is wrenched open and he is bundling me towards the one chair in the room and pushing me into it. He kneels before me, red-rimmed eyes roaming my visage, my person, seeking a diagnosis.

I lift my leather brief from my satchel, fumbling over the strings as I pull out the relevant papers and offer them to him, a visable tremor in my fingers.

(The best traps are baited.)

“It’s the report on the South-side district. I’m sorry, t-there was more data to collate than I realised…” I rub my left palm against my forehead and try to pretend the motion is utterly inconsequential.

“Dear gods,” he curses somewhere between annoyance and distress. “When was the last time you slept?”

(The best bait doesn’t look like bait at all.)

I shake my head. “No – no, I haven’t fallen behind – I can complete my duties!” My voice is twisted tight with an edge of panic. “When I’m too tired, then I make a tincture – a – a tea to wake me up!” I heave my satchel onto the desk and sort haphazardly through the contents, casting them across Dr Devorak’s papers, my nails skittering jaggedly against every object until they ting against the pottery flask. I pull it out with a mixture of anxiety and victory – “Here!”

Julian snatches it up and glowers at me.

“It’s only burdock, caffyr, dandelion, ginseng, ginger and cinnamon…”

Dr Devorak looks at the flask, then at me, and back towards the flask again.

(The best bait is always irresistible.)

With stern deliberation he places the flask on his desk, just out of my reach. “I cannot allow this,” he says with surprising gentleness. “If you can’t complete your reports in the time that I ask, then you will hand them in to me at the earliest opportunity your duties allow – without making the use of stimulants and potions!” His gloved fingers encourage my chin up to meet his gaze. “Am I clear?”

I turn my head in shame. “Yes, Dr Devorak.”

He smiles tiredly. “Good. Now off you go – go home.”

I leave his office obediently, then skulk in the darkened corridor before creeping back to the hinge of his door and the sliver of sight it affords me. I am gratified to watch Dr Devorak drink deeply from my pottery flask, a tea he thinks will refresh his mind and enliven his thoughts. But I know what he does not: it will do nothing of the sort. It’s a stronger form of the sleeping draft Asra used to make for me when my headaches overwhelmed and threatened to cripple me. I wait a little while longer in the corridor until I hear a wobbly, muffled sort of crash. I peer through the crack by the hinge again. Dr Devorak is on the floor, his spine up against the draws of his desk, his long limbs curling in on themselves like next door’s cat, finally fully surrendering to exhausted slumber.

I pull out the key I’d stolen from his desk when I fussed with my satchel. It has a little raven skull carved into the fob: as I guessed, it locks his study door. I crouch down to take a last look through the crack by the hinge; the candles are low, but in their slight and coppery light I can still see the doctor’s face. Even by tallow-light his skin is too pale in contrast to the shadows beneath his eyes. My heart twists in pain. He’s tirelessly destroying himself trying to save the populous of Vesuvia, and the more I think of it the more that damn fishhook lodges in my guts… I’d ask Asra’s cards what it all meant, but Asra has Asra’s cards, and I think I know the answer anyway. I tilt my head against the gap between the door and the frame, my brow leaning uncomfortably against the rough edge of the wood, all so my right eye can catch sight of Dr Devorak curled beneath the lee of his desk, his angular limbs and brows finally relaxed in true sleep.

Two errant ringlets escape my scarf and I tuck them behind my ear. “If he ever finds out what I did, he’s gonna murder me,” I inform the hinge in the smallest whisper. “I know I should leave well enough alone, but, gods! Have you seen him? Maybe Kitty was right – she said all the assistants would do anything for him…” My expression skews lopsidedly into self-deprecation. “What the hells does that say about me? I argue with him over the tinctures all the time, because he refuses to believe magic or spellwork can heal anything, and his attitude makes me so cross… And then to top it all off I go and drug him! Hardly the acts of a devoted apprentice… But at the end of every day he’s more tired and defeated than the last. It’s like he can’t breathe – he’s drowning on dry land…” I blink and pull in a breath, realising I’d just confessed a tangle of secrets to a bit of ironmongery. I wait, watching him for a minute longer before I’m satisfied the draft has taken hold. With a gesture I extinguish all the candles in the doctor’s study. “Tell him one word and I will _end_ you,” I promise the study door in a hiss before slowly rising from stiff knees to sneak back the way I came.

On the ninth morning, I work my shift as usual and am dismissed after lunch. Dr Devovak’s study has remained locked and no answer has come after three taps on the door. The staff assume he is visiting the palace, and hope he might return bearing herbs or minerals, vessels or tools that could aid us in tracking down a cure. None of them are aware he’s unconscious in his office, nor do any of them know it’s my fault.

At dawn on the first day of the new week, I walk to the clinic and use the iron key I’ve been trusted with to let myself in, checking I’m the first to have arrived. The clinic is clean and empty; when I reach Dr Davorak’s study I use the key I’d stolen to unlock the door.

He’s still curled on the floor by his desk, his features smoothed in sleep. It’s the first time I’ve seen him without that pinch of worry stabbing down between his brows; it makes him look younger and more fragile – too young and too breakable to be carrying the weight and responsibility of a clinic during a plague outbreak on his shoulders. I return his key to the mess of papers on his desk and take back my empty flask of sleeping draft, tidying it out of sight in my satchel. In its place I put a cup which I fill full of black coffee; I’d bought a jug of freshly brewed Nevivon roast from the market on my way in. Its aroma is rich and strong enough to wake the dead. I crouch down and shake his shoulder. “Dr Devorak?”

His eyelids flicker for a moment before rising and allowing his grey eyes to focus blearily on me. “Hm? What… dear gods Lana, I thought I told you to go home?”

“I did. Only it’s dawn on the first of the week: time for the day to start!”

“The first? I could have sworn…” He sits up groggily, his hair in disarray.

“I brought you coffee. You didn’t sleep all night here, did you? That can’t have been comfortable.”

He stretches experimentally, surprised to find no stiffness in his limbs. “It _was_ actually… how peculiar. And no nightmares,” he murmurs to himself.

I hand him the coffee before he can ponder too closely on the miracle of his dreamless and easy sleep. “Here you go; I asked them to brew it extra strong.”

He smiles as he takes the cup. “Perfect, thank you, that was very thoughtful of you, Lana.”

In light of that smile, any guilt I feel over my underhand actions vanishes entirely, melting away like mist in sunshine…


	19. Chapter 19

The light changes and I’m raising shaking fingers to my face to stem the warmth I can feel there.

Julian has one arm around my shoulders, steadying me. “Dear gods, Lana,” he pinches his thumb and forefinger briskly against my nose, staining his fingertips with opalescence. “If you don’t open your eyes right now, then I’m stealing whatever this thing is that’s afflicting you. Doctors and pirates both take advantage of any weapon at their disposal. I’ve been both – what do you think I might do?”

This close, I can feel the anxiety and potential thrum from him and his magic. “Be a melodramatic bastard,” I groan.

He huffs a laugh despite himself in reply, and then cool fingertips and careful claws are using the washcloth to clean my face. “Is this going to be an ongoing habit of yours? If so, you’d better tell me now so I can fortify myself,” he says grimly.

“I didn’t faint!” I protest.

“You were a moment away from it and you were anything but steady on your feet. Not to mention you’re leaking magic again, about to get it all over your jerkin. What happened?”

“It was a memory, from back when I was an apprentice at your clinic.”

“Oh?”

“Do you remember the night you slept in your office and I woke you up with coffee from the market?”

He frowns before nodding. “I do. What of it?”

I bite my lip and I know my eyes are alight with mischief. “You slept in your office because the revitalising tea you confiscated and drank was actually a sleeping tincture. And you didn’t sleep for one night, you slept for two nights and a whole day as well.”

He stares at me; his eyes wide, his mouth gaping in surprise before suddenly laughing. “You – you _devious_ little witch!” he exclaims with something like admiration.

His laughter is infectious. “I’m sorry!” I say, sounding anything but. “You had the weight of the world on your shoulders and you were so tense and tired all the time, worrying about finding the cure, about supplies and donations and how the clinic would cope, about Lucio’s demands…”

“Hm,” he agrees, “It was a rather trying time. Out of curiosity, was that the only instance when you drugged me?”

“I have absolutely no idea. How long was I working at the clinic?”

He calculates. “Seven or eight months I should say.”

I grin wickedly. “Then that’s definitely not the only time I’m afraid!”

He looks towards the ceiling as if seeking assistance from the gods. “What was I saying about your deviousness not being aligned against me…?”

“I wouldn’t have to be wily or deceitful if you weren’t so stubborn!”

“I thought you ranked my wilfulness as a virtue?”

I pull a face and seesaw my hand in the air to indicate my wavering opinion. “Sometimes-virtue. You’re lucky I love you,” I inform him facetiously.

His gaze is soft and earnest. “You do?” he asks, his arms enfolding me, his wings stretching as if to bask in the warmth of the emotion.

In turn I wrap my arms tightly around his narrow waist. “Yes, I do.”

He hums, pleased, and leans over to kiss the crown of my head. “Tell me again.”

“I love you.”

“Just one more time,” he entreats with another kiss, his lips lingering against my skin.

_“I love you.”_

He sighs, relaxing against me; I feel the comforting glow of the Moon’s bindings netted snuggly around his aura and looped securely round my wrists. I could stand like this forever, perfectly content, were it not for the small matter of the Devil and the merged realms. “Come on,” I say with regret. When that doesn’t produce any affect, I prod Julian in the side, knowing full-well how ticklish he is.

He makes an undignified noise and springs back, releasing me, before blushing and studiously pretending he had not just yelped.

I buckle closed and shoulder my pack. “I'm serious. Come on...” I offer him my hand. “We’ve a Devil to humble and a World to save.”

“You don’t ask for the little things, do you?” Julian complains, but he’s smiling, and he clasps my hand in his and gives it an encouraging squeeze.

I open the door, and hand in hand, we leave the Hanged Raven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All done! Thank you for reading...
> 
> Please do comment or leave kudos if you enjoyed =)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [And For My Next Trick...](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27015604) by [Elkian (SuperImposed)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperImposed/pseuds/Elkian)




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